


Spotlight On: West

by Cranky_Tanky



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Canon Divergent?, Covers all stuff on earth, Infiltration, follows along the lines of robots in disguise after that, sorta - Freeform, then moves to cybertron
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 18:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 45,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29422782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cranky_Tanky/pseuds/Cranky_Tanky
Summary: We know what the Lost Light crew has gotten up to -- but what about West, Flux's pint-sized amica? Here's what he got into after the events of Who We Are At the Dawn chapter 26.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 2





	1. Radio Ga-Ga

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! I'm going to be reworking some of West's sections in the Dawn fic too, to reflect what he was actually up to! I'll probably just paste the beginning part of this in or something, idk yet. All i know is not too much from this will change when put into Dawn!
> 
> Trigger warnings:
> 
> \- Emetephobia/vomit warning. Look for the "***" to know when it starts and ends.

_ “Go to the mouth of the canyon by noon tomorrow. A friend of mine, Vaporwave, will be waiting for you. He’ll wait for two hours and then he’ll leave, so make sure to be on time! He can take you to the Autobot base in Michigan. You won’t be able to get to it by yourself, so you  _ **_have_ ** _ to meet up with him.” _

_ “I will, Ma.” _

_ “And make sure to wear your sun-screen, you’re going to be waiting out in the sun if you’re early!” _

_ “It’s ‘sunscreen,’ Ma.” _

_ “Just make sure to wear some!” _

_ “I -- hehe -- I will, I promise. Honest!” _

  
  
  


\-------------------------------------

  
  


West was abruptly woken from his half-dozing by the rev of an engine and a transformation sound, and footsteps gently approaching. He cracked open an eye just as a big, gray finger approached to poke his cheek, the bot behind it violently purple, orange, and blue, with a neon-blue grid pattern. They jumped back, drawing their hand back as if West had bit it. _ “Ugh, don’t  _ **_do_ ** _ that,” _ he said in English, accent sounding almost British.  _ “You’re all so squishy!” _

“You Vaporwave?” West asked, in Neocybex, stretching with a groan before getting up and slinging his backpack over his shoulder with one strap.

“Yes, and you’re West, I assume? The M -- well, our  _ mutual friend _ asked me to come pick you up and ferry you to the Autobots. She didn’t mention you spoke the language!”

“You pick things up along the way,” West responded. “Alright, then, southwest Arizona to Michigan, here we go.”

“Gotta pass through Phoenix, first,” Vaporwave explained, transforming. “Hope you don’t mind a detour. I was hired for a PI job by some local bots. I bought some snacks for the road, so just buckle in and sit tight.”

“Gotcha.” West trotted around the passenger’s side and sat down next to the creepily smiling holoform, grimacing. “Dude, the smiling is  _ weird.” _

“Humans like smiling, though, right?”

“When it’s appropriate, yes!” West sighed. “Look -- just, watch how I move.” He gestured to himself for a moment or two, making a couple of faces. “See? Readjust your matrix.”

The holoform flickered for a moment or two, and then reappeared much more relaxed, face set to a neutral blank. “Better?”

“Better.” West buckled in as Vaporwave took off, keeping his bag in his lap. “Michigan, here we come.”

  
  


\-----------------------------------

  
  


Vaporwave was a pleasant conversation partner, all things considered. But he was far too chatty for West’s taste, even if he kept that to himself. West kept his hands busy by braiding little plaits into his hair and then unbraiding them and playing on his flip-phone (Vaporwave was kind enough to let West charge his phone through him). 

At night, he slept leaned back in the seat, taking his shoes off to tuck his legs up folded under his thighs. Finally, they got to Phoenix. Vaporwave let West out at a bus stop to wait “just for a bit” and drove off, leaving West to sulk, bored, at the bus stop. He sat on the bench, waiting, and just watched the other people at the bus stop. He briefly let his eyes wander over to a man in a tan suit, standing on the curb as he did something on his pager. West perked up a little, eyebrows lifting. Well, now, that was a nice one!

He looked away, still wondering about where the hell that guy could’ve gotten it -- maybe from his company? and sighed. Was he supposed to just sit here like a puppy? A hand rustled his bag that was decidedly not his own. On reflex he lashed out and caught the person by the wrist, gripping so hard they hissed through their teeth. They had his flip phone in their hand. He followed the wrist up to the arm and saw a girl with dark hair and her hat turned backwards. “Let go,” she hissed.

“Hands off my stuff,” West growled back, letting go. “You want a phone,  _ that  _ guy looks like a better mark. It’s one of those real fancy pagers.” He jerked his head over to the guy in the tan suit and the girl’s face lit up when she saw him.

“Hey, thanks,” she said, and melted back into the crowd, presumably on a mission. West just watched her board the bus behind the dude, and the flash of her hat as she sat next to him where he had one of the window seats. The bus hissed and whined, the doors closing, and she waved to him in a begrudging sort of way as the bus passed on by out of the stop. West nodded and waved with two fingers back, even offering a smile. Been there, done that. In his head, he wished her luck. Two more buses came before West saw Vaporwave pull up to the curb, garnering whispers and stares. West sighed dramatically before getting up, and smiling as he got into the passenger seat.

“Took you long enough,” West said, “How’d it go?”

“Fine,” Vaporwave said, though he seemed glum. “I guess. Lead didn’t pan out. C’mon, I’ll take you along this road and we can go ahead to Michigan.” He took off at an obscene speed, engine roaring, as he bobbed and weaved through traffic. West balanced his chin in his fist and stared out the window, sighing. They passed one bus, and then the second one, a little while later.

“Jeez! Speed demon much?” West didn’t even  _ get  _ carsick and he was starting to feel a little green in the face.

“You try driving 50 miles an hour most of the time,” Vaporwave complained. “Not my fault nobody on Earth can handle driving above 50, minimum.”

“Uh-huh,” West said, as they pulled up behind an RV or a van or something. “Well, can you slow it down a little? I feel like I’m gonna be sick.”

Vaporwave sighed. It came out through his internal vents, blowing West’s hair back a little. “Fine, fine.” He eased off the gas from where he was going to pass the RV. “I’ll just tool along, then, I guess. Look at all this… dirt. Oh, look, a rock.”

“You’ll make it, unless you want me puking on your upholstery,” West deadpanned, and the car shivered.

“Yup, dirt’s  _ just  _ fine,” Vaporwave said. “Do  _ not  _ puke inside me.”

“S’what I thought,” West sighed, his stomach settling back down. “Thanks.”

“Uh-huh.” They drove along in silence for a little bit, until a plume of smoke rose in the distance and the van screeched to a stop, making Vaporwave yell and put the brakes on too, tires screaming. “Woah!”

“Fuck!” West called, bracing himself on the dash. “Jeez! What’s their problem?”

“I dunno,” Vaporwave panted, “but looks like it has to do with that big plume of smoke over there. Huh. Let’s go have a look-see.”

“Dude, really?” West complained. “You were bitching and moaning about having to drive slow and now you’re taking a detour?”

“I’m not  _ driving,  _ and I’m curious,” Vaporwave said, as if it explained everything. He pulled off at the same time the RV did, only to see one of the buses from the Phoenix stop, on its side and smoking. The passengers were milling around outside, talking. The two passengers in the RV got out, including the girl West met at the bus station. “Wonder what happened here…”

“Who knows.” West unwrapped some bubble gum and popped it in his mouth, starting to chew. “But look, even our snoopy friends have lost interest. The bus probably just popped a tire or something and swerved, huh?”

“Yeah, probably.” Vaporwave did a three point turn and zoomed back onto the road. They had barely been on the road at all before a deafening roar sounded, and a red light washed over them and then the RV in front of them. “Uh-oh,” Vaporwave said, “We gotta split! If the Cons find out why you’re in my passenger seat it’s crumpets for you, me  _ and  _ our buddy!” He revved his engine to go around, as the jet finished its low pass and circled back around, firing a round of shots off. As the two people in the RV got out and made a run for it, the RV exploded, stopping Vaporwave in his tracks with a yell. He threw the passenger door open. “Out, kid! I’ll distract ‘em! Join up with the other humans!”

West didn’t think about it -- just took his bag and booked it as it bounced against his ass. “Wait!” he cried, after the girl and her friend. They turned around and her eyes widened in recognition. “Wait for me!”

“You’ve been following us!” she accused, eyes narrowing even as they ran.

“Only because you were the car we got stuck behind when I asked the guy driving to slow it down from  _ ninety miles an hour,” _ West panted, “and  _ then  _ he wanted to check out whatever that bus was doing there.”

“We don’t have time for this!” the guy insisted, tugging the girl along by the arm. “Come on if you’re coming, guy!”

“Can’t you just, I dunno, take this off and wave surrender or something?” the girl panted, tugging on the guy’s shirt.

_ “Doubtful!” _ West wheezed, booking it along beside them. He was sure he was gonna have a bruise on his tailbone with all those datapads knocking around in there.

“Yeah, I got a good look in the cockpit,” the other guy said, “Trust me, surrender’s not gonna be much of an option. Now move!” The three of them ran on the dusty earth, until with whooping sirens, an ambulance pulled onto their path -- and transformed a set of guns out of his roof. West’s jaw dropped and he skidded to a halt, eyes wide. Another cybertronian? The ambulance took a shot at the jet, and skidded to a halt in front of them.

“If you want to live,” the bot said, creepy smiling holoform in the driver’s seat, “get in!”

West certainly didn’t object, running around to the passenger’s side and throwing open the door, jumping in and scooting all the way to beside the holoform. “You an Autobot?” he murmured in Autobot Neocybex, knowing he probably sounded like a dumbass -- his Autobot wasn’t as good as his Decepticon, but there was no way he could speak that if this  _ was  _ an Autobot.

The holoform looked at him as the bot’s engine revved in surprise. “How did you --”

The other guy -- the straw-blond -- was in next, cramming next to West to make room for the dark-haired girl, as she shut the door and the ambulance took off. She pushed and shoved, jostling the guy into West, who grumbled and grimaced. “Get off me!” the girl complained, and she and Blondie argued until Blondie took a look at the ambulance’s speedometer and then glanced out the window, jaw dropping. “Wait -- there’s no way we’re going 65. I’d say twice, no  _ triple  _ that! Which means -- he looked over at the ambulance’s holoform, and West leaned back into the seats, grimacing. “You’re one of them, aren’t you -- you’re not a he, you’re an it! Sweet mystery of life -- I’ve  _ found  _ you!”

**_Duh,_ ** _ just look at the hair on the holoform. And the smile! Why do they  _ **_all_ ** _ smile like that? _ West wanted to say, but he bit his tongue. A dangerous venture in a chase like this -- they rode over a bump and West almost bit it off. He hurriedly freed his tongue from his teeth and kept his mouth shut. Vaporwave was nowhere in sight.

“Hey, hey!” The girl said, “I hate to burst your bubble, Hunter --” A dark car with a Deceptibrand roared up beside them, “-- but we’ve got company!”

“At ninety-one miles an hour?” Hunter yelped, looking out the window. Then he looked out the driver’s side. “Uh-oh --  _ double trouble!” _

West looked on either side. He didn’t recognize them, but that wasn’t surprising. He hadn’t seen any other mecha up close and personal really, other than ones dying in the badlands after being perforated or blown up. 

“Hunter,” The ambulance said, “That’s your name, right?”

“What? Uh, yeah, Hunter O’Nion -- that’s oh-en --”

“Can I trust you, Hunter?”

“Trust me?”

“You’ve already seen things you shouldn’t have, and you’re about to see much more. Can I trust you?”

“... yeah. You can.”

“Hey, while you two are taking your fraternity pledge, big sis is right here,” the girl said.

“So sorry,” the ambulance said, “and you are?”

“Verity. Verity Carlo. What about him?” she asked, and then pointed, accusatory, at West. “He showed up just when all this was kicking off.”

“How is this  _ my  _ fault?” West cried, hands to his chest. “I was getting shot at same as you!” Then he glanced at the dash. “Er -- I’m West, West McLambert by the way.”

“Well, Verity, West…” the ambulance sighed. “I hope I can trust you, because to use a local idiom --” at this, the steering wheel folded out of the way and a 3-d grid map came up, with little figures representing the ambulance and their two pursuers. “I’m way out on a limb here, and we just hit breaking point.”

“Who are they?” Hunter asked, reaching over West to point at the cars. West grimaced again.

“Personal space!” he tried to protest, but all Hunter did was toss an absentminded “sorry” his way and get back to investigating. West supposed he didn’t mind -- Hunter was kind of cute. He blushed a little, pouting and looking away, towards the grid display.

“The enemy,” was all the ambulance supplied.

“Like the jet?”

“Worse. That one was just a grunt following orders,” the ambulance supplied. “These two like to play with their food!” Just then, one of them bumped him, and he went swerving, trying to recover as the two cars on either side of him tried to make him flip. West just squeezed his eyes shut as Hunter shouted and the ambulance took a shot at the car on the left, and then EMP’ed the car on the right.

“Did we lose ‘em?”

“Them, yes,” The ambulance said, as West cracked his eyes open to look on the display. A jet soared down into the gridspace. “Him, no.”

“Ah, great!” West shouted, as the jet’s engine whine got louder and louder. “What’s their fucking deal?” Black smoke poured out of the ambulance in the rearview and seemed to choke the jet -- it abruptly pulled up and away to recover.

“That bought us maybe two, three minutes. We need a populated space -- a place to hide.”

“Like a bolthole,” Hunter offered.

“Exactly,” the ambulance said. “My, ah… vehicle is in need of repairs.”

“...Reckon I’ve got just the place,” Verity said, digging around in her bag and producing the pager West had seen with the tan-suit guy. So she  _ did  _ manage to snag it!

  
  


\-----------------------------------

  
  


After a bit, they were off to Riverside, to meet a friend of hers called “Jimmy Pink.” As they pulled into an automotive shop driveway, a handsome man in a jumpsuit and a yellow headband came to meet them, shaking hands with Verity. They got the ambulance inside, Hunter and Verity went off to get a soda, and West stayed behind to watch the cute mechanic work, from where he was perched on a table. The grinning holoform approached him, leaning in.

“How much do you know, kid?”

“Enough,” West answered in Neocybex. “I’m looking for Autobots to hole up with. Friend of mine said it’d be safer than neutrals because you all have bigger numbers.”

“You --” the holoform sighed. “You  _ shouldn’t  _ even be hanging around us in the  _ first place. _ Look, Decepticons aren’t the retaliatory type, so why don’t you just, y’know, run on home?”

West watched Hunter rifle through Verity’s bag and activate her pager, inspecting it. “Eh,” West said, “that’s a little personal, Doc.”

“How’s that for ya?” Jimmy called from under the bed. The holoform walked back over to him.

“Actually, kind of tickles,” he mused, and West put his face in his palm.

“Huh?”

“Nothing, er -- never mind. It’s perfect. You’re a natural.” They got wrapped up deep in conversation. Jimmy had been fixing cars practically since he’d been out of diapers. Then Jimmy pulled himself out from under the car and sat up. “Quid pro quo, my grinning friend,” he said. “This vehicle -- what is it? Where’d you get it? It’s like --”

“Nothing you’ve ever seen on Earth?” Hunter said, crossing his arms.

“Ignore him,” Verity rolled her eyes, seated on a stack of tires. “He thinks they’re aliens from space. It’s a personal fantasy he  _ insists  _ on sharing.”

“I’ll admit, it’s a fanciful theory. And all I’ve had to back it up have been blurry photos and unreliable eyewitness accounts. Until now.” He thrust the phone into the holoform’s face, ignoring Verity’s shout of “hey!” and staring the holoform down. “Wanna tell me what this is?”

Verity started to storm over. “That’s my computer, dammit, who said you could --”

“Verity,” Hunter trailed off, then gained steam. “It’s not your computer. I think you stole it, and what’s more -- I think it’s why we’re being targeted.”

“You realize how unhinged that sounds, right?”

“I can’t speak to the computer thing,” West cut in, waving a hand, “but the robots thing is true, actually.”

Hunter blinked in shock, opening his mouth, but the ambulance cut them off.

“It’s all true,” he said. “All of it. You’re in terrible danger. The enemy --”

“Enough already!” Verity shouted, snatching the pager back and yelling all the way out the door about testosterone and extra-terrestrials before slamming the door.

“Hey, I haven’t taken T for months!” West joked, at the same time Hunter and the holoform said, “prickly!”

“Should we --?” Jimmy asked.

“She’ll be back,” Hunter said, and then turned to the holoform. “Now, does this enemy have a name?”

“Yes. They’re called --”

“Decepticons!” Verity shouted, opening and slamming the door closed, leaning against it. “It said -- it changed --!”

“Ah, shit,” West said, at the same time the ambulance said “They’ve found us!” He started to herd the group towards himself. “Get inside me -- er, the vehicle! Hurry!”

“The data storage device,” one of the Cons growled, “Gimme!” The ambulance transformed into a bot with a gun. The Cons yelled and the same one demanding the phone took aim with his own gun, growling, “You Autobot piece of --”

“Ah, bup bup!” the ambulance shouted, taking a shot and ramming into the other one. “Not in front of the humans!” He turned back around, staring down the group. “Verity, Hunter, Jimmy, West --” then, he transformed back into altmode, engine revving. “Get in, now!”

After everyone was inside, the ambulance took off screaming down the road, tires squealing against the asphalt. They merged onto the highway, where the car weaved and bobbed through traffic.

“This is all about that computer, isn’t it?” Hunter asked, “The one she stole!”

“Hel- _ lo!” _ Verity protested.  _ “She’s _ right here!”

“Yes,” the ambulance said. “I was only able to scan a few images, but what was on that was  _ more  _ than enough to get us killed. We -- my group, I mean -- intercepted a Decepticon pulsewave. A human male had been specifically targeted for deletion. I think I understand why now -- whoever he was, he managed what our entire detachment couldn’t and -- hang on a moment.” The 3d grid pulled up again, and that fucking jet was back.

“Oh, come on!” West shouted, holding onto his bag, feeling green in the face again. He made a mental note to absolutely  _ ream  _ Flux -- and Vaporwave -- for this. “Don’t the Decepticreeps know when to give up? Rhetorical question.” He shouted as the ambulance slammed on brakes, making the jet shoot over them, far overshooting their position. Their situation didn’t improve, however, as the two cars from earlier were hot on their tail too. West looked out the driver’s side mirror and groaned, head falling back against the seat.  _ “Those two _ again?”

“Runabout and Runamuck,” the ambulance said, grimly. “Persistent bastards for sure -- this is bad!”

**_“No, really?”_ ** Jimmy shouted, trying to brace himself on the ceiling.

“You don’t understand, Jimmy,” the ambulance explained, but got cut off by having to swerve around a crash.

Without thinking, West took over. “These guys don’t like to come out of their metaphorical hidey-holes,” West panted, glancing in the rearview. “They’re supposed to stay stealthy, but obviously they don’t give a shit anymore!”

“Right,” the ambulance said, voice leading suspiciously, “which is bad news -- it means the data computer is more valuable than I realized, or they just don’t care anymore -- or --  **_uff!_ ** \-- both!”

As the cars behind them fired missiles, Verity shouted. “No disintegration ray? What kind of alien are you?”

“I’m a medic!” the ambulance defended, screaming towards a head-on collision with a tanker truck. Just as everyone in the front seats was sure they were going to die, the ambulance swerved out of the way, leaving Runabout and Runamuck to crash behind them. “I prefer to explore other options!”

“I need a laundry, fast!” Jimmy panted, looking white as a sheet. 

**_“JUST -- STOOOP!”_ ** Verity screamed, and the ambulance squealed to a halt on the side of the road, allowing Verity to scramble out and pant over a cliff.

***

“Normally I’d argue but --” West gagged, swallowing the rising lump in his throat, “I think I also need to --  _ hrk!” _ He thew open the driver’s side door and bolted to the cliffside, just in time to fall to his hands and knees and empty the contents of his stomach over the cliff’s edge, retching until he was empty. Panting, he laid down on the hot dirt, not even caring that it was getting his cute shirt all dusty. Jimmy came out to try and talk to Verity, but it all faded into nonsense as West just tried to focus on his stomach feeling better and better. It was, so there was a positive. He traced the tattoo on his wrist, leading up the inside of his forearm and upper arm to under his t-shirt sleeve.

***

After a brief conversation with Jimmy, Verity glanced up, cursed, and ran forwards to haul West up. “We gotta go,” she said, urgently, “c’mon, c’mon! Everyone in! Go, go go!”

The ambulance didn’t move, even as the jet fired a missile. “No,” he said.

“What are you waiting for?” West shrieked, as Verity started praying and Jimmy covered his eyes. “Go, go!”

“Not yet.”

“Oh my  _ god, _ we’re gonna die in the world’s worst game of _ chicken!” _ West shrieked, covering his own eyes. He could  _ hear  _ the missile now! 

“Now!” the ambulance shouted, and did some kind of fooly-cooly nitro boost or something -- West wasn’t sure. All he knew was that it damn near flattened him and the others to the seat as they took off at speeds that left all his internal organs where they’d been sitting moments prior like it was some kind of Roadrunner cartoon. He barely had time to feel them insist they were trailing behind the car before three  _ more  _ cars pulled up in the distance ahead of them -- a red van, a cop car, and a yellow muscle car.

“Tell me they’re friends of yours,” Hunter whined, as guns folded out of their tops.

“They’re Autobots, you can tell by the badges on their hoods!” West said, glad he’d thrown up earlier. The road erupted in a cacophony of blaster shots and the wing on the jet partially blew up, taking a very shaky path up and away to recover. The ambulance let loose a parachute from the back to help the brakes. They still squealed in the dust. West was released from the clutches of the seat, as were Jimmy, Verity, and Hunter. They all panted and giggled nervously to themselves, doing fistbumps and high fives as a “hey, we made it!”

“Comrades in arms,” the ambulance agreed, “summoned -- albeit belatedly -- while we were still at Jimmy’s garage.” His engine idled. “Prowl?”

“I guess they aren’t the type for hugging reunions,” Hunter mumbled. West craned to see the cars out front. The pregnant silence in the air was all-too-familiar.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d say you were in hot shit with your team,” he laughed, nervously. The group transformed, aiming blasters, and West jumped. “Oh, wow,  _ very  _ hot shit I see!”

“Ratchet,” the cop car read off, in Autobot Neocybex, “You face  _ seven  _ counts of misconduct,  _ gross  _ dereliction of duty, and disobeying a  _ direct order _ from a  _ senior officer…” _

“What are they saying?” Verity whispered, to herself.

“Ratchet done fucked up,” West responded anyways, leaning over slightly.

“You can understand them?” Verity hissed.

“... plus sundry violations of sections _ six, eleven, fifteen, and twenty-two _ of the Autobot code of interplanetary conflict. Anything you’d like to say?” The police car growled.

“Two words,” Ratchet responded,  _ “Siege mode.” _

  
  


\------------------------------------------

  
  


West didn’t know what the fuck “siege mode” meant, but it must’ve been the magic words, because they got bustled back to base faster than West could say, “boo!” 

West, Verity, Jimmy and Hunter all got packed into a room, where Verity spent the time yelling herself hoarse at the camera, holding up the pager and trumpeting about how she’d delete the pictures in a heartbeat.

“Say, kid,” Jimmy said, turning to face West. “You knew what they were saying back there. How so?”

“Name’s West,” the boy responded, shaking hands briefly. “West McLambert. And, uh -- it’s kind of a long story.”

“I didn’t get the chance to say this before, with all the -- y’know -- but, nice tats.” Jimmy nodded to West’s ink -- or at least, what he could see. West glanced down at himself, noticing the sweeping cables going down the insides of his arms to his wrists, where they appeared to turn into wiring that then burrowed into the skin of his wrists. A bit of blue ink peeked out in a glow from the neckline of his tank top. 

West grinned. “Oh, yeah.” He pulled up his shirt, revealing the spark-casing and struts and cables fullbody tattoo. “This? I got it a while ago after I had a  _ major  _ break with some money. Best decision  _ ever. _ Anyways,” he said, letting the shirt drop, “I’ve known Neocybex for years. That’s the language. But -- that’s kind of a secret. I’m sure they can’t hear us over the yelling --” he jerked his thumb at Verity, who was still howling at the camera, “so, just keep it on the low, alright?”

“Gotcha.”

“Time out!” Hunter cried, plugging his ears. “I vote for peace and quiet, alright?”

“Agreed,” Jimmy nodded. “Points for effort, Verity, but chances are nobody’s listening.”

“Oh yeah? Then chances are I need to shout a little louder!”

She didn’t -- Ratchet’s holoform appeared in front of them, startling everyone -- and then the walls moved backwards, widening the room considerably and revealing a computer terminal.

“A bigger box, nice.”

“My apologies,” Ratchet said. “But you being here at all was very  _ strictly  _ conditional on somewhat  _ limited  _ access.” Great. West sighed. He was never gonna land it here, it felt like. How the hell was it that Flux, a Major General in the Decepticon Army, was more welcoming to organics? He felt like a bug being kept in a jar. Not for lack of Ratchet’s trying -- he had to give the ambulance credit, Ratchet seemed like a pretty okay guy.

“Where is here, exactly?” Jimmy questioned.

“This is, uh, Ark-19, our spacecraft.”

“We’re in space?” Hunter yelped. “But I thought we  _ drove  _ all the way here?”

“We drove into Lake Michigan,” West said, one eyebrow raising. “Aren’t we at the bottom?”

“We are, and I have got questions for  _ you,” _ Ratchet said, pointing at West. “But for now -- the computer.” He extended his hand towards Verity. “Please.”

She looked conflicted, glancing down and then back at Ratchet before starting to hand it to him. She pulled back, chewing on her lip, and then dropped it into his hand. “There.”

“Thank you,” Ratchet said, going over to the computer terminal and plugging the computer in. “You’ll get it back, I promise. But I must have access to the data stored within. I believe the very future of this planet depends on it. This won’t take long. Had Wheeljack prepare and interface ahead of our arrival, based on web specs for the SM-40. I just hope we aren’t too late…”

“So what does that mean for us, for Earth?” Hunter asked. West just hung back, knowing but not wanting to draw any more attention to himself. He was already bringing too much heat by knowing way too much. As Ratchet explained how the Decepticons were specialists in infiltration, West thought back to Flux. It’d been almost a week since he’d seen her. Where was she now? What the hell was she doing on Earth still? He checked his nails, tuning out of the explanation

“Siege mode is part of phase five -- a specific military tactic. Hunker down, from a command center. In for the long haul. That kind of thing.”

“Is there a phase six?” Jimmy said, and West cringed, grimacing.

“Trust me,” Ratchet said, “you  _ don’t  _ want to know.”

Jimmy glanced over to West, who made a face and slowly drew a finger across his neck. Jimmy paled and looked back to Ratchet.

“The thing is it's  _ far  _ too early for siege mode,” Ratchet hummed, thoughtfully. “Not only is it far too early, they appear to have two  _ distinct  _ command bunkers -- one in Oregon, and one in Nebraska. Somehow, our pager-carrying friend must have gotten inside. It looks… abandoned. Curious for sure, but… inconclusive. If I’m to convince Prowl and the others of the imminence of the threat, I need more.”

“Just so I’ve got this straight,” Verity said, and West walked over to look at the computer as well. From what he’d learned, two bases was extremely unusual. “The usual procedure is to establish a hidey-hole and do whatever they do from there, right?”

“Right,” Ratchet said.

“So,” Verity led, “Why’d they move?”

West made a face, thinking on it. “We could go find out.”

“Yeah!” Verity said, nodding. “We could go look!”

“Snoop around a little, y’know,” Hunter offered.

“We’re smaller than you are,” Jimmy added, helpfully.

“What? No! I can’t. You can’t!” Ratchet backed up against the console, bracing his hands behind himself. He sighed, looking down, and then looked back up. “No. It’s one thing to passively involve you, and another to knowingly place you in a situation of extreme peril.”

“The bunker’s abandoned,” West offered, flipping a palm out.

“You don’t know that,” Ratchet insisted.

“No, wait,” Hunter said. “You said yourself it looks abandoned.”

“Yeah, and our mystery man got in and out just fine,” Jimmy backed up.

“And -- and we  _ laugh  _ in the face of danger!” Verity yelled, and then rubbed the back of her neck when everyone turned to look at her. “Did I say that?”

“Yo,” West laughed, extending his fist for a bump, “rock on. Cheers to that.”

“No,” Ratchet said, holding up a palm. “I appreciate what you’re offering to do for us -- for  _ me  _ \-- but nothing can justify such a risk.”

“Two words,” Hunter said,  **_“Siege mode.”_ **

Ratchet bowed his head, grinning at the floor. “I… I need a moment.” And with that, he flickered and disappeared.

  
  


\----------------------------------------

  
  
  


“Kids,” Ratchet said, as the wall to their left folded up to reveal the ambulance rolling to a stop beside them, “Let’s roll out.” Next to him, a Volkswagon pulled to a stop, throwing open the door. A similarly grinning person sat in the front seat, in a pink cami and jeans.

“A bug!” Verity shouted, climbing in. “Sweet.” Jimmy climbed in the back, and West and Hunter took the front seat of the ambulance. Then, it was off to Nebraska. West and Hunter taught Ratchet some road games along the way.

“I spy…” Ratchet said, pulling to a stop in forest clearing, “A Decepticon bunker.”

“Nice segway,” West laughed, patting the dash and getting out, grabbing the rope and rappelling equipment before he shut the door. “See ya on the other side.”

“Yeah. Be careful, kid.”

“Always!” West mockingly saluted, clicking his teeth and winking as he walked backwards. They lowered Verity down first -- then it was Hunter, then West, and finally, Jimmy. They split up, taking their flashlights and themselves down separate corridors of the bunker. West patrolled the halls, running into closed doors (no luck opening those, he couldn’t even reach the keypad) and empty habsuites when he could get inside. This was the boring wing, it seemed. He keyed into his comm patch. “West McLambert, reporting in,” he said, then groaned. “I’m bored to death! It’s just empty habsuites from my wing.”

“Nothing here either but rubble,” Jimmy said. “I’m scanning everything, of course, but I could just die. It’s too quiet in here.”

“Agreed,” West said. 

“So -- how do you know so much about these guys?”

“Met a Genericon -- footsoldier, that is -- when I was nine,” West fibbed, offhandedly. “They crashed near my house and were out of commission for a month. Guess they didn’t mind a little organic hanging around, because they taught me the lingo and the ins and outs. Been… hard to adjust ever since.” Like hell he was gonna tell ‘em who he  _ really  _ met.

“So you knew, the entire time I was talking about extra-vehicular activity!” Hunter accused, not actually sounding too mad. “You knew I was right!”

“You were on a roll,” West summed up, then laughed. “Far be it from me to steal your thunder.”

“West, you look like all you  _ do  _ is steal thunder,” Verity cut in, and the four laughed about it over comms. “Woah, hold the front page, I’ve got something here.”

“Where are you?” West replied. “I think my wing is looping me into yours. I might be close. I think I can hear you -- outside comms, I mean.”

“I dunno, but. It’s this weird tree thing. Mechanical, lots of tubes.”

“Ooh, I wanna see! Okay -- I’m in a long straight hallway, with -- West squinted up at the sign on the wall. “The sign says ‘facsimile production.’ Whatever that means. I dunno what facsimiles are.”

“Not everyone can read the language, West.”

“Right. Uh, it’s a sign that’s got weird symbols on it and hazard striping around the edge. And a biohazard symbol -- but not like, an Earth one.”

“Oh, yeah, head straight down the hall, last door on the right,” Verity said. West turned off comms and booked it, feet slapping against the metal floor before he skidded to a halt in front of the door -- just in time to see her wave away green mist from one of the tubes and gasp, falling backwards.

“Hey, what’s the matter!” West said, running forwards to hover. She angrily waved him off, shoving him as Jimmy and Hunter panicked from her comm. West’s own comm fell to the floor and shorted out -- he groaned.

“Verity? Verity, what’s the matter?” Jimmy asked.

“I’m fine! Just startled.”

“You know, I’m scared like scooby doo, so if you wanna call it quits --”

“No!” She brushed herself off and got up, sights set on a partially open door on the other side of the room. “I can do this.”

“Yeah, but should we,” West said, following her anyways. The earth rumbled, making him nervous. “Look, I know this was partially my idea, but I’m getting a bad feeling, Verity.”

“Then you can pussy out yourself,” she said, continuing her march across the room. 

“Verity?” Hunter asked.

“Just one more bit to check out,” she said into her comm, sliding down a little hill of rubble. West followed her, even as another rumble shook the place. “Won’t be but a moment. I’ll see you topside. She glanced over her shoulder at West. “West, you should go find them.”

“And leave you here by yourself? And worse yet, leave  _ me  _ by  _ my _ self?” He shook his head. “No way, honey.” He followed her through the door, having to squeeze through after her. A familiar voice from inside the room sounded -- the same one from those speeches on some of the datapads West had! He gasped and tried to reach out and grab Verity by the shirt to pull her back, but his hand swished through air as she stepped into the room and froze. “Verity,  _ get back here!” _ he hissed.  _ “Verity! _ Verity, that’s --” He made another swipe and stumbled, looking up with what he was sure was a similar expression. “Mega.. tron…” he trailed off, staring the warlord right in the eyes. He glowered down at them, nonplussed, before turning back to his computer. Verity raised her scanner, catching him on video.

West pulled her back by the shirt, spinning them around so she was in front of him and he started shoving. “Go, go, go!” He hissed, jostling her. She wasn’t moving, still frozen and staring over her shoulder. West cussed a little in Neocybex, and then snapped at her to “ _ move it!” _ in the language, too. 

The second he’d said it, he knew it was a mistake. Megatron turned his head to glower at them again, and West realized that a squishy organic speaking Megatron’s glorious metal tongue or whatever must’ve seemed like a horrific affront. “Move!” West shouted, shoving Verity hard. They broke into a run, but Megatron didn’t seem to care enough to follow them, which was either very good or very bad. The ceiling was actively caving in, rocks and stones falling around them. They ran with their arms over their heads, booking it back down the hallway out of the facsimile wing back to the exit point. Not sure what covering their heads would do against the boulders coming down, but West supposed it was better than nothing. After what felt like hours and hours -- dirt was starting to pour in, too, now -- they finally reached the exit point, the rope a lone lifeline in a waterfall of dirt and stone. Verity scaled it first, West hot on her tail, with Bumblebee holding the tree the rope was attached to firm. 

“Let’s go, go go,” Bumblebee responded, jerking his head along. “Up, up, up!” The ground around him started to cave as the entire shaft became a sinkhole, dirt streaming down like Niagara falls. Hunter fell in, grabbing the rope to steady himself, and Jimmy almost followed him. 

“I can see Verity and West,” Hunter said, one eye closed as he strained his hand. “I can almost -- reach Verity!”

Bumblebee projected his holoform, making it a gigantic version of himself to pick West off the rope as Hunter grasped Verity’s hand. As Verity got hauled up, Bumblebee tossed West onto safe ground, holoform disappearing. West hit the ground with an “oof!” and was sure he bruised a rib.

“Everyone hurry up!” Ratchet barked, throwing open his back doors. Hunter, Verity, and Jimmy all piled in, as West wheezed, hauling himself up enough to limp and hobble in, joining them. They pulled him in by the hand and shut the door.

“Whatever was in there,” Ratchet said, revving his engine, “It had better have been worth the grief!”

“It’s --” West wheezed, holding his rib. “Ratchet it’s --”

“Kid, your breathing’s off,” Ratchet said, “I think your rib is broken, try not to agitate it too much!”

“Ratchet, it’s _ Megatron!” _ West shouted, ignoring the burning pain in his chest. “Verity and I -- we  _ saw  _ him!”

As Ratchet was about to respond, a huge boom shook the earth behind them, a bloom of orange explosion lighting up the sky behind them and a beam of light took out one of the jets circling over their handiwork.

“Oh yeah,” Ratchet agreed hastily. “Megatron!”

“Who?” Hunter panted?”

“Trust me, you’re better off not knowing,” Ratchet said, “We’re certainly in no hurry to engage. Thankfully, he seems to have more  _ pressing  _ matters to attend to.”


	2. Take Me Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After finding out Megatron is back in play, West, Verity, Jimmy and Hunter all regroup back at base, but get kicked out by Prowl as soon as their "usefulness" is over with. However, West is kept behind for questioning, his breadth and depth of knowledge about Cybertronians being extremely suspicious. West makes a run for it and exacerbates an injury.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings:
> 
> \- discussion of something (facsimile avatars) that might trigger depersonalization/derealization. marked with the first set of "***"
> 
> \- mention of physical abuse, marked with the second set of "***"
> 
> \- if you have needlephobia and feel empathy pain, i'd skip the third set of "***" as it discusses emergency depressurizing of someone's chest cavity, along with popping a shoulder back into its socket.

“I spy, with my little eye, something green,” West mumbled, chin in his fist again as he stared out the window. The Eastbound route 80 sign was approaching in the distance, looming over the road.

“Kid, I’m trying to report back to base,” Ratchet said, and got quiet again.

“You’ve been reporting for- _ ever,” _ West whined. He’d only just been allowed off the gurney in the back of the ambulance, Ratchet insisting that his rib had to be checked. It was cracked, but it wasn’t broken. Big whup -- wasn’t like West had never had some broken ribs before. It definitely hurt, because Ratchet didn’t have any human painkillers, but… he’d make it. “I’m  _ bored. _ You don’t have to play if you’re reporting. Anyways, something green.”

“A tree,” Verity guessed, also staring out the window.

“Uh-uh,” West said, watching the road sign as he sighed from his puffed cheeks. “Ouchie.”

“Y’alright, kid?” Ratchet said, immediately. “Need a hospital?”

“Nah.” West just shifted with a grimace and a grunt. “Just really sore. S’not like I’m unfamiliar with broken bones, ya know!”

“That’s why you should be at  _ home,” _ Ratchet fussed, engine revving. “Organic offspring are even more fragile without their forgers to protect them!”

“Uh, sure,” West said, unconvincingly, and Verity shot him a Look of “you wanna talk about that later?” He met eyes with her and made a “can it” motion with his hand. She backed off, nodding, and resumed staring out the window. “Anyways,” West said.  _ “Still _ something green. We’re gonna pass it in a sec!”

“No hints!” Jimmy said, at the same time Hunter said, “A road sign!”

“Yeah! Okay, Verity’s turn.”

“Uh, I spy with my little eye, something yellow,” Verity said.

“Easy,” Jimmy said, “The yellow line on the road. C’mon, Verity!”

“If you think you can do it better, why don’t you try?”

“Still trying to make a report here!” Ratchet groused.

“I -- actually, I have a question,” Verity cut in. “If this Megatron is headed west, to Oregon, how come  _ we’re  _ eastbound on I-80?”

“Don’t look at me, I ain’t drivin’ this guy,” West said to the window. “Though, uh, seconded, Ratchet. Can’t help but feel we’re going the wrong way.”

“You are gonna get yourself _ killed,” _ Ratchet griped. “Prowl’s orders -- he wants you four out of harm’s way.”

“What?” Verity shouted, “but you said --”

“I know what I said,” Ratchet sighed. “But for you four at least, the adventure is over. It’s a minor miracle you escaped mostly uninjured, and I should never have put you in harm’s way in the first place.”

West growled at the window, eyebrows knitting down. “Like sitting around --” he fumbled for the wording, but all he was coming up with was Neocybex. Getting a little desperate to finish his thought, he just translated it directly. “--  _ keg sipping _ while y’all go off to war is any better,” he grumbled.

“What’d you say?” Ratchet asked, shock rather than anger in his voice. “Say again?”

“I said, like sitting around talking is any better --”

“No, no --” West’s heart dropped to his feet, “-- the exact wording. What’d you say?”

“Like sitting around keg sipping is any better?”

“Uh-huh,” Ratchet said.

“Why does that matter?” Hunter asked. “What’s that got to do with anything? It’s just some slang. Are you from down South or something?”

“Something like that,” West said, cursing himself for being a dumbass. He should’ve just dropped the word entirely! The sentence still would’ve made sense! Why couldn’t he just use his brain?

“It  _ is  _ slang,” Ratchet said, tone unreadable, “Never mind, we’ll talk about it later.”

“Verity, I for one am  _ glad  _ we’ve been sidelined,” Hunter said, putting his face in his hand. “I’ve seen a lot of things today and I for one need a very long moment to process it all.”

“Have to agree with Hunter,” Jimmy said, scratching the back of his neck. “This is kinda a good thing. It’s okay to not be able to handle something.”

West was about to say, “speak for yourselves, I’m here for this,” and then Verity burst into quiet tears, and he joined the other two boys in trying to reassure her. “Hey, hey, um -- it’s okay, really! It  _ was  _ really scary, actually, ya know…”

“You did amazingly well, even in the face of what happened today -- things you could hardly be expected to undertake,” Ratchet interjected. “You helped us to understand why things have gone so drastically wrong here. Let the others handle it now -- trust me, they’re better equipped.” He paused, for a moment. “Hey, I’m done with my report,” he said, leadingly, tone lightening. “I  _ suppose  _ \-- I spy something blue.”

  
  


\-------------------------------

  
  


Major General Flux heard the yell from all the way inside the bunker:  **_“STARSCREEAAAMM!”_ **

She watched Commander Starscream flinch, too, even powered up on Ore-13 as he was, and he sent the peanut gallery outside to…  _ welcome  _ Megatron home; Astrotrain, Thundercracker, Runamuck, and Runabout.

“Just this once,” she murmured in Starscream’s ear. “I’m helping you do this  _ once.  _ You had better know what you’re doing, Starscream, my units are waiting for me.”

“Pipe down, Major General,” Starscream growled, shoving her away. “Just back me up if I call for you.”

She nodded once. “Understood.” Outside, the four were stepping down. Starscream made a series of indignant, terrified splutters and transformed, jet engines roaring as he shot straight out of the mouth of the bunker. Flux watched him, glowing with red Ore, scream about how Megatron was mortal, could be killed just like them, and fire off his missiles. When Megatron barely flinched, her spark sank -- this  _ wasn’t  _ going to go well. 

But -- she’d promised Starscream, and she wasn’t about to revoke her loyalty now, especially when Starscream needed it and Megatron didn’t deserve it. Flux watched Starscream unload attack after attack, even throwing Megatron around a bit, and it didn’t do a damn thing. Flux stepped off the platform and hit the ground with a resounding  **_BOOM,_ ** rolling her head around to crack her neck struts. Then, she rolled her shoulders too, getting ready.

“No prizes for guessing what comes next,” Thundercracker warbled, nervously. The four next to her were shaking.

“I appreciate your tacit support, Major General,” Megatron gloated, beating Starscream into a pulp. Flux’s fuel hit boiling, her audials whistling slightly. Next to her, someone mumbled “uh-oh.” Megatron continued, oblivious. “But I can handle this disappointing cyberhen  _ myself!” _

“Flux!” Starscream croaked. Flux nodded, and cracked her knuckles. 

“Oh, shit,” the same person next to her said, “is she-?”

“It’s not  _ you  _ I’m supporting, Megatron,” Flux bellowed, and charged in to deliver a resounding uppercut to Megatron’s jaw. He cried out, stumbling backwards, and the betrayal in his optics was so tasty she almost stopped to savor it. “For once, I have to agree with  _ Starscream  _ on this matter!”

“Major General, I’m  _ disappointed,” _ Megatron hissed, grappling with her. She was much bigger than Starscream, who lay groaning on the ground, so Megatron was having much more trouble manhandling her. They slammed foreheads together, growling into each other’s faces. Flux stared resolutely into his baleful red optics, their hands on each other’s shoulders in a mockery of a hug. “Starscream is a big mech -- he can take his punishment like a Decepticon! As a matter of fact,  _ you  _ **_both_ ** _ can!” _ And with that, he separated to blast a crater through Starscream’s chest and rounded on Flux, blasting a hole through her belly with the still-smoldering fusion cannon.

  
  


\------------------------------------

  
  


“Er, excuse me,” West heard the bright yellow muscle car -- his name was Sunstreaker, West thought -- “what are the humans doing out?”

“Rude much?” West asked, crossing his arms and lifting an eyebrow.

“Just leave it,” Prowl said, stalking in behind the returning group. “I hate to say it, but Ratchet was right. It’s time to call in Optimus Prime.”

“It’s  _ past  _ time, I’d say!” Bumblebee shouted, turning slightly to address Prowl. “I mean, what the hell was Major General Flux doing in that bunker -- allying with Starscream, no less! I mean, imagine how the big Meg is gonna react, expecting to do a little light spring cleaning and then he finds his house’s  _ foundation  _ is mutinying, too!”

“Uh, yeah, about Optimus,” West said.

At the same time, Hunter hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “I think he’s already here!”

Behind them, the door opened to reveal Optimus Prime.

  
  


\---------------------------------

  
  


“Yeah, it’s Jazz,” the racer said, holoform rooting through West’s bag. “Uh-huh. Nothing much so far, just some extra clothes and non-perishables, toiletries…” He lifted a pair of dog tags out of one of the pouches on the inside, humming. “This is strange. It’s a pair of dog tags.”

“Well, what’s on them?” Prowl asked, keeping his voice low. Presumably, he was still catching up with Optimus and the others.

“It’s not so much what’s  _ on  _ them, it’s what they’re  _ made of,” _ Jazz mused, scanning them to be sure. “Yeah -- this is Cybertronian plating. The nanites are long since dead, but -- maybe Wheeljack or Ratch could get a nanite signature to match it to someone, still.” He continued rooting around, eyes widening when he reached the bottom of the bag. “Oh, boy.”

“What, what is it?”

“These are -- datapads!” Jazz pulled one out, turning it on. “This is -- this is  _ Towards Peace, _ Prowl. In Neocybex, no less!”

“What the hell is an  _ organic  _ doing with a Neocybex copy of  _ Towards Peace?” _ Prowl growled. “Keep looking.”

“There’s a few others here,” Jazz said, putting it back and pulling out another. “An audio one…” He pressed play and a video feed of Chermiin of Stripangxa came up, giving a speech from just before the war. “Prowl, remember how Ratch said he thought the kid knew more than he was letting on?”

“Yeah?”

“Well, I think he knows  _ a lot more.” _

  
  


\---------------------------------------------

  
  


“We’re what?” The four humans shrieked. West ignored the pain in his rib, putting a hand to his sternum in indignation.

“I’m sorry,” he said, “I was under the impression that we  _ meant  _ something!”

“I’m sorry,” Ratchet explained, sheepish. “But you’re going back. To your lives, your homes, everything.”

“Wait a minute,” Hunter said, “I kinda thought we were a part of this, y’know, honorary Autobots or something. I mean, heck, how can we go back, with all we’ve seen?”

“Don’t kid yourself, Hunter,” West snapped, crossing his arms and turning away. “We’re too  _ squishy  _ for honorary Autobot status. Not good enough for  _ that.” _

“I mean, some of us don’t even have anything to go  _ back  _ to,” Jimmy implored. “My garage -- I don’t think insurance is gonna cover that one.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Ratchet said, rubbing his head. “If it was up to me --”

“Oh, I get it,” Hunter said, at the same time West threw up his hands and scoffed. “This is Prowl’s doing, isn’t it? Figures. Doesn’t matter if we came through for you guys, or almost got killed -- we’re just surplus supplies.”

“I broke a  _ rib  _ for you pieces of scrap!” West shouted, lifting his shirt to reveal the hefty bruise on his ribcage before letting it drop. “And now you’re just gonna send me away, because this war isn’t  _ actually  _ about organics -- it’s just a  _ pissing contest!” _

Ratchet glumly looked away. “Look, I -- it’s not like that. Whatever danger that palm computer held, it’s long since passed and its details have long been divulged… and the Decepticons don’t really deal in petty retribution. I’m sorry -- my hands are tied.”

“Right, whatever,” Hunter grumbled, crossing his arms and looking away.

“Verity?” Jimmy asked, looking over his shoulder. “Not like you not to have an opinion.”

“Feh,” Verity said, putting her hands on her hips. “I’ve not been wanted anywhere since I started crawling.” She turned and started to walk away. “Why should now be any different?”

“If that ain’t a mood, I don’t know what is,” West agreed, turning to fall in step with her.

“Not you,” Prowl said, voice commanding. “You, McLambert. Got some questions for you.”

“How come  _ he  _ gets to stay!” Verity shouted, fists balling.

“I don’t think they want me around for my  _ sparkling  _ personality,” West said, suspiciously. “I’m sure they’ll give me the boot as soon as they’re done.” He gave a little wave to the group and then followed Prowl back into a different room, where a table had been set up from the movable panels in the floor and walls, along with a little bench. On the table, lay his backpack with his clothes and toiletries and food in it, along with his can of Rust-Eze he carried everywhere, all of his datapads, and the dog tags. Stomach tightening, he slowly sat down on the bench, feeling like he was back home, with Clement laying out his weed stash on the table to rip into him about it. Behind the table, on the far wall, stood Optimus, Ratchet, and then Prowl joined them. They all had their arms folded, just like Clement would.

“What?” West broke the silence, staring out from under his eyebrows. 

“I don’t think we have to explain why this looks bad,” Prowl said, nodding to the datapads. “We’ve seen what’s on those.” West stayed quiet, rigidly still. “Now,  _ I _ think you’re a facsimile avatar for someone --” Prowl said, lifting his chin. “Who is it? Starscream? Virtue? Slipstream? We can help you if you tell us.”

“Look, I don’t actually  _ know  _ what a facsimile is,” West said. “I saw the sign in the bunker, but -- what is it, better holoforms?”

“Sort of, yes,” Ratchet explained, ignoring the Look Prowl shot him. “They’re bio-technical organisms grown in fusion tubes, created from real humans who were kidnapped to serve as the starter cells.”

_ “Wait, _ **_wait,_ ** **_wait_ ** **\--”** West waved it to a stop. “Hold the phone. Hold  _ several  _ phones, actually. All of them. You think I’m -- some kind of  _ android cyborg? _ Or --  _ something? _ That I was grown in a  _ test tube?” _

“You’re certainly not the  _ first  _ facsimile avatar we’ve encountered,” Prowl said, from where he stood next to Optimus. Optimus himself had said nothing, just watching, evaluating.

“Are you _ kidding me?” _ West said, “My name is West McLambert -- I was born in Statsin, Iowa, and my family hates me so I ran away. Uh, my dad kicked the shit out of me all the time, then my family had an actually planned baby and I became second fiddle, which I hated, so I ran away. Ended up in Arizona, met Vaporwave, joined up with Ratchet soon after.” He raised his arms and let them drop. “That’s it.”

***

“Facsimiles often have implanted memories,” Ratchet said, gently. 

“Look, you can -- you can _ look me up! _ McLambert, Statsin Iowa, 113 Yarrow Drive. Honest! I have a father named Clement McLambert, and a mother named Melissa McLambert, and I have a little sister named MacKenzie McLambert. She just won, uh --” West waved a hand, trying to remember. “My friend told me a few weeks ago that she just won some kinda prize in her little preschool class.”

“Jazz already looked you up,” Prowl led, frowning. “There’s a Jennifer McLambert who went missing a few years ago. We think she was the original organic template that  _ you  _ were taken from.”

“I’m a trans man!” West yelled, ignoring the pain in his ribs. “She’s -- _he’s_ \-- **_me!_** First of all, you’re giving trans healthcare in this country _entirely_ too much credit. Look, do you need some kinda -- _proof_ or something?”

“We want the genetic template. It’s gonna give us the key to all the other facsimiles.”

West felt himself starting to panic. He was  _ so  _ sure he was entirely human. He didn’t even  _ like  _ being human, why did he care this much? But -- but what if he was wrong, what if his memories were fake? He strained to remember, but all it did was make him less and less sure.

“I’m sure this is a lot to process, kid,” Ratchet said, trying to be gentle. “Look, I can take a blood sample and test it and we can know for sure, how about that?”

West usually hated needles, but he thought about it, nodding. He extended his arm, putting it forearm-side up on the table. Ratchet projected his holoform with a syringe and readied it to go in after sanitizing the needle with some fire. “Interesting tattoo,” he said, noting the cables on West’s arm. West didn’t say anything. He’d thought his closeness to robots was because of his relationship with Flux but -- but what if that was fake, too? What if he’d just woken up a few weeks ago? Was he sent to infiltrate the base? Had he done exactly what the Cons wanted? Maybe that was why he was so desperate to stay with the Autobots…

***

Ratchet slipped the needle in and pulled back the plunger, drawing a few ticks of blood before pulling it out and pressing a cotton pad on the wound. He then took the syringe, and emptied it into a vial on his arm, the plating over it transforming away. Then he pressed the vial down, seeming to scan it. “Hm…” he said, and then frowned. “Hm. Would you excuse me a moment?” he said, at West.

“What, what is it?” Prowl asked. Ratchet walked over to him, and smacked him on the head with a clipboard.  _ “Ouch!” _

“I  _ told  _ you, Prowl! He’s human --  _ entirely! _ No trace of Cybertronian material in him. One-hundred percent, _ bona-fide _ human being, homo sapiens sapiens. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to help boot out the humans that went out on a limb for us.” He stormed out, muttering to himself.

“Be that as it may, that still raises the question of how an organic would have multiple Decepticon datapads and  _ Towards Peace,” _ Optimus cut in, gesturing. “Or how much you know about us, and why. Not to mention, how much you seem to know about the war.”

“S’kinda personal,” West mumbled, looking at his hands as they fidgeted on the table. “Okay? Like, really personal.”

“You just spilled an entire sob story about how your forgers are horrible, and now  _ this  _ is too personal?” Prowl asked, lifting a brow.

_ “Yeah, _ what the fuck about it?” West snapped, drawing in on himself. “I don’t have to take this from a fucking  _ cop. _ Or  _ two  _ cops, for that matter!” He shouted, pointing between Optimus and Prowl. “I know what I know and I’m fine sharing what I know but not where I got it from -- got it?”

“Then what do you have to say about these?” Prowl said, leaning forwards to pinch the dogtags by the chain and lift them up. “We weren’t able to get a nanite signature off of these, not for lack of trying -- and this is clearly Cybertronian plating.”

“So?” West crossed his arms and cocked his head back, pouting as he stared Prowl up and down. “Met a lotta Cybertronians.”

“Our information shows that it can take years for a human being your age to learn a language,” Optimus cut in, kneeling to be more eye level. West just lifted his chin defiantly, jaw sticking out a little. “You only arrived in an area with Cybertronian activity very recently.”

“Maybe I’m a quick learner,” West said, shrugging with one shoulder.

“Your accent also suggests learning Decepticon first,” Optimus said, sternly. “And your lack of a human accent -- as much as possible, that is -- suggests you learned this very young. You said you were born in Iowa?”

“Maybe,” West said, eyeing him suspiciously. “Why?”

“Run a list of Decepticons known to be in Iowa at the time,” Optimus said to Prowl, who nodded.

“Hey, wait!” West snapped, letting his arms drop to his sides as his fists clench. “It doesn’t matter! Fuck this -- I’ll just go hang around some NAILs! Let me out of here. This was a mistake!”

“Yeah, right, kid,” Prowl said. Then he addressed Optimus in Neocybex, “Ratchet said the kid used a Low Gaumic idiom as well. I need a timeframe to look through, Optimus.”

“Did he?” Optimus glanced back at West, brow furrowing. “Young man, when did you first learn Neocybex?”

“Fuck yourselves,” West spat, in Decepticon Neocybex. It was stupid, he knew -- but he was rapidly deciding he didn’t care. He’d pitched in to help these people, and he understood being a little suspicious, but this was ridiculous.

“Judging by his accent, I would say five to twelve,” Optimus noted quietly. 

“The only Con that’s showing up as in the area at that time is…” Prowl trailed off, eyes widening as he looked down at his datapad. “Is…” He glanced up over the ‘pad at West. “I don’t believe it.”

“Who? Who is it?”

“It’s -- it’s Major General Flux,” Prowl said, dropping the datapad down slightly. “A little under a decade ago, she crash landed outside of Statsin, Iowa. Was out of commission for a month. She was barely half a mile from the McLambert residence.”

“So?” West shot back, turning his back. He defiantly sat on the table, crossing his legs, to show them how little he cared. “Doesn’t mean anything. I met a Genericon that got wrecked. You know Megatron treats them like cannon fodder, they weren’t even recorded.”

“There were no Genericons in the area at the time,” Prowl said, sternly.

“You don’t know that! Look -- you can keep my stuff, whatever.” West flipped his hair back. “Except my clothes and stuff. You can keep the Cybertronian stuff, whatever. Just -- I don’t wanna be here anymore. I’ll just go find some NAILs.”

“Take him back to the cell block,” Optimus said. 

Oh,  _ hell _ no! West jumped up from the table, ignoring the bolt of pain in his side, and tried to book it. 

Where was he gonna go? He didn’t know, but he was gonna get there. Maybe they’d have some escape pods on the ship and he could use one to float to the top of the lake and disappear into the woods. Then he could find someone to contact -- maybe even get on the Big Conversation as an anonymous user looking for some NAILs. He considered his clothing, laptop, and other stuff a lost cause, there was no way he could get all that. His rib screamed at him, and he gasped out shallow breaths as he ran, holding his hand to his side. It felt like a stitch in his side after running way too much, only a thousand times worse.

Prowl’s holoform appeared in front of him -- West just spat something rude and dove into a feet-first slide between his legs, wheezing hard and fast at the pain in his side. It was spreading from his rib like a white-hot poker, searing in a glow outwards through his whole left side. He scrambled up onto his hand and knees, one hand still pressed to his side, and coughed, hacking on the ground. It just made his rib hurt more and he kept trying to crawl along, attempting to get to his feet. He coughed, wheezing -- something definitely felt fucked up in there -- and staggered to his feet, holding along the wall as he tried to jog. It made him cough violently, but he just growled and pushed through. 

His delay had cost him, though -- Prowl and Jazz cut him off, with Wheeljack joining the party as well. They cornered him to the wall, and West certainly wasn’t doing well enough to do that home-run slide again. He tried for it anyways, ignoring the rattling wheeze he kept making, and tried to go for in between Wheeljack’s legs. Prowl made a grab for him.

“Oh, careful, his rib-!” Jazz shouted, throwing his hands out. West felt Prowl course-correct just in time to grab him by the upper arm, yanking him back hard enough that West felt the joint pop out of place. Immediately his shoulder lit up with searing pain, and he shouted through his teeth, staggering backwards, still wheezing raggedly. His heart pounded in his chest, and sweat was starting to bead on his forehead.

“He’s not lookin’ so good,” Wheeljack said, leaning down to peer at him. West just spat at him, and then coughed.

“Ratchet said his rib was cracked from the bunker earlier,” Jazz said. “Think he aggravated it?”

West grimaced, as Prowl started to tug on his arm to pull him along. He yelped when the cop did it a second time, grumbling about organics.

“Woah, Prowl, easy!” Jazz chastised, coming around. “What’s wrong with his shoulder?”

“It’s dislocated, assholes,” West coughed, chest honking loudly. “You pulled it out of its socket, dickhead.”

“Well I wouldn’t have had to if you weren’t trying to make a break for who knows where,” Prowl snapped, but stopped pulling on him. “Let’s get Ratchet in here -- the others have left by now.”

“Mhm.” Wheeljack’s holoform disappeared, and West hacked and coughed again, trying to catch his breath. His chest felt tight. 

“I need to --” he coughed into his fist -- “I need to sit down, catch my breath a second --”

Prowl let him sit, as Jazz’s holoform knelt next to him. “What’s the matter?”

***

“Dunno,” West managed, holding a hand over his side. “Doesn’t feel good. This is worse than the time Clement kicked me down the stairs,” he laughed dryly, and then grimaced, grunting, and coughed again. “Is the air thin in here, or is that just me?”

***

“He _ what?! _ Out of my way!” Ratchet shouted from the other room, “Get the others out of the way, too!” With that, his holoform appeared in front of West, kneeling. Jazz backed away. “Tell me what’s the matter, kid.”

“Rib hurts,” West managed. “Shoulder dislocated. Hard to breathe. Sure I’ll be fine.” He managed a winning smile. “S’not like you guys want me here anyways, right?”

“That doesn’t mean we want you to up and  _ die, _ you little --” Ratchet lifted West’s shirt, scanning the re-blooming bruise. “Your rib is broken now,” he said, all business, “and you’ve punctured a lung. Not life-threatening, but bad news.” 

“Ah,” West said, leaning his head back against the wall. “Never punctured a lung before. That’s new.”

“You have  _ gotta  _ stop being so  _ nonchalant  _ about injuries!” Ratchet scolded, gently scooping him up. “Sorry, kid, we don’t have a stretcher your size.” He ferried West back to the table they interrogated him at, as someone else cleared it of his stuff and Ratchet laid him down. “Do you know how to treat a punctured lung, before I have to look it up?”

“You’re going to have to put a hole in my chest cavity,” West grimaced. “Not a big one -- but enough to let the air out.”

“Do humans have pain blockers?” Ratchet said, flicking a scalpel into his hand to start cutting West’s shirt.

“Hey, hey  _ hey!” _ West shouted, coughing. “Not  _ that  _ much of an emergency! This is a nice shirt!” He sat up, grimacing, and tried to take it off, yelping when his shoulder refused to cooperate. Ratchet just helped him take it off and then laid him back down, producing a thin, beveled metal tube.

***

“Do you have pain blockers?” he asked again.

“Nope,” West groaned, wheezing. “This is gonna  _ suck.” _

“We could always knock him out,” Prowl grumbled. “Might shut him up for a little bit.”

_ “You’re _ going on this table next if you don’t  _ can it,” _ Ratchet growled. “Get him something to bite down on. Kid, one of us is gonna have to hold you down so you don’t flinch.”

“Not Prowl,” West complained. “He’s done enough!”

“I quite agree,” Ratchet said, shooting Prowl a Look. “Jazz, can you help me out?”

“Unbelievable!” Prowl said, throwing his hands up as he turned away. 

Jazz came forwards and laid warm hands on West’s shoulders. “Sorry, kid.”

West just offered a smile, coughed, and balled up his shirt, sticking it in his mouth. He flashed a thumbs up at Ratchet and mumbled through it. Ratchet just frowned a little and readied the bevelled needle, pricking West’s side with it. “I’m scanning your thorax,” he said, “So I know where to put this, alright? You’re doing great, kiddo. Trust me, this should fix it.”

West started to mumble, “just do it already!” into his shirt, but before he could get halfway through Ratchet struck the tube with his other palm and punctured West’s thorax, causing West to surge up against Jazz’s firm hands and scream through the shirt. He heard the gentle hiss of air through the tube, and gasped through his shirt as breathing came easier, bit by bit. He whimpered into the shirt, tears pricking his eyes, and tried not to snivel, biting down on the shirt again to choke back a sob. He coughed instead, diaphragm convulsing. He ripped his shirt out with one hand and yelled,  _ “Fuck!” _

“I didn’t puncture anything,” Ratchet said, patting West’s belly. “Anything unintentional, I mean. Air’s draining now. Great job, kiddo, you took that like a champ. Shouldn’t take too long… just another minute or two. Then we can move on to that shoulder of yours -- speaking of,” he glowered at Prowl. “How hard did you pull his arm, Prowl?”

“I just grabbed his arm to stop him,” Prowl complained.

“I’ve dislocated that shoulder before,” West supplied, taking in deeper breaths of air. The wheeze in his breaths was rapidly fading. “Makes it easier to dislocate again.”

“How many injuries do you  _ have _ , kid?” Ratchet grumbled, scanning him again. “Your thorax is looking good… it’s a very small puncture, so it shouldn’t cause a collapse so long as you _ don’t do anything crazy.  _ Should heal on its own in a couple of weeks. But did you hear me?” He put his hands to his mouth. “So long as you don’t do anything crazy,” he said, loudly and pointedly. West just grunted and nodded. Finally, Ratchet deemed it okay to take the tube out and put it aside, dabbing at the wound with some cotton. “Hold that there, kiddo.” He moved around to West’s other side and scanned his shoulder. “Sit up for me?”

West sat up, putting his shirt back into his mouth. “Just do it,” he mumbled through the fabric. “Just get it over with.”

Ratchet grabbed him firmly by the upper arm. “Jazz, can you brace him from the other side for me?” After Jazz got into position, Ratchet nodded and shoved, pushing West’s shoulder back into its socket with a  **_POP!_ ** West yelled through the shirt again, panting. Finally, he put his shirt back on. Ratchet grabbed some of West’s clothing and made a sling out of West’s extra t-shirt, putting it over his head and gingerly helping his bum arm into it.

***

“Thanks, Doc,” West mumbled. “And thanks, Jazz.”

“Sure thing, kid,” Jazz said, and patted West’s good shoulder. 

“Now, what the hell were you trying to book it for?” Ratchet said, putting his hands on his hips.

West shrugged with his good shoulder. “I figured, ‘fuck this,’ and I wanted out. I’d rather be hanging around some NAILs than be locked up.”

“Why did Major General Flux even send you here?” Prowl questioned harshly, crossing his arms. “Are you her idea of a joke? An organic spy?”

“Doesn’t seem like her division,  _ or  _ her style,” Jazz said, scratching his head.

_ “No,” _ West said, sighing heavily. “Look,  _ fine, _ I met her, yes. I was nine years old and -- she crash-landed in the old barn I used to go to to get away from my family. When I found her, she was knocked out, so I slept in her hand that first night. Noticed she had a rust infection, though I didn’t know what that was at the time, so I brought back some Rust-Eze the next time. She woke up, eventually, we introduced herselves, and I helped her get the rust off her thumb. She said her systems were gonna come back online gradually, so, I just kept visiting. She seemed glad for the company, started teaching me Neocybex. After about a month, she left, and I wanted to go with her but she said it wasn’t a good idea. Now I know why -- the DJD -- but at the time I was just sad she was gone. Home life sucked, yada yada, we know all that, anyways, I ran away at fifteen after MacKenzie was born. Bus-hopped for a few years, couch-surfed… I was headed for San Francisco, or looking for more Cybertronians -- didn’t matter which -- when I met her again just a few weeks ago, in an abandoned cave I was using to shelter from a thunderstorm.” 

West smiled at his hands, forlornly. “Was good to see her again,” he said. “She tried to get me to leave y’all alone -- Cybertronians, I mean, not Autobots -- because it was too dangerous, but when I insisted she said it would be better to go to the Autobots than be with NAILs because y’all are in bigger numbers and protect organics.” He turned to look over his good shoulder. “Okay? I’m not a spy, or a facsimile, or some kind of plant.” He shrugged. “I just… don’t fit in super great with other humans.”

Prowl and Jazz and Ratchet all looked at each other. “I’ll speak with Optimus,” he said, quietly, “see what he thinks.” With that, he left the room.

“Prowl’s really not so bad,” Jazz said, helping him off the table. “Once you get to know him.”

“I hate to give Prowl any credit, but Jazz is right,” Ratchet agreed. “How are you feeling, kid?”

“Well, not like a million bucks but I can breathe,” West sighed. “I guess back to a cell with me?”

“Let’s call it a room, for now,” Jazz offered, smiling at him as he gestured with his head. “C’mon, I can try and scrounge up a blanket or something.”

“I can use my backpack as a pillow,” West said, grabbing it and leaving all his Cybertronian stuff in the room. “I do it all the time. You know -- it’s really nice to just lay out in the Arizona desert and look up at the stars. There’s tons of them! There’s so many I didn’t even know existed!”

“That so?” Jazz laughed. “You should’ve seen the sunsets on Cybertron. Whew! They were gorgeous.”

“I’ve heard,” West laughed, hefting his backpack on his good shoulder as he trailed along behind Jazz.

  
  



	3. Thunderstruck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reeling in the loss of Sunstreaker and Hunter, the team of Ratchet, Ironhide, Verity, Jimmy and West head out to a small custom car shop and find more than they bargained for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's been in my docs for a couple days and I just gave up. XD
> 
> trigger warnings: none that I can think of.

West got woken up by a commotion outside in the main room of the Ark, and got up, grimacing at the ache in his ribs and the pain in his shoulder. He made his way out into the main room, seeing everyone gathered around a crumpled -- Sunstreaker? On the table.

“Is that Sunstreaker?” West asked urgently, bracing a hand on the wall next to him. 

“Thankfully, no,” Ratchet explained. “We were just discussing that, actually. Someone went to great lengths to make it appear as if this was Sunstreaker though, which means the real Sunstreaker -- and Hunter -- are still out there, possibly.”

“Who did this? Decepticons?”

“Not sure.” Ratchet shook his head, closing his eyes. “Ironhide reported that he saw humans doing the attacking, and Jazz and Wheeljack were also accosted by a group of humans at the car impound. Could be facsimiles though. Ironhide wants to take it to the Cons, but Optimus advised us to wait.”

Just then, Verity and Jimmy ran back in, followed closely behind by Ironhide. Verity ran straight to West, Jimmy hot on her heels, and stopped short at seeing West’s injuries. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, uh --” West laughed, awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head with his good arm. “Er, long story short, a broken rib, a punctured lung, and a dislocated shoulder. I got interrogated for why I knew so much and they wanted to keep me here and I decided I didn’t wanna be kept here. Tried to make a run for it, fucked up my rib in the process. Then Prowl grabbed me by the arm and it popped my shoulder out. But it’s really no big deal! I’d already dislocated that shoulder once before and if you pop something out once, it’s super easy for it to happen again…” West trailed off when he noticed Jimmy and Verity wiping away tears.

“We thought Hunter was dead for sure,” Jimmy sniffled, and gingerly came over to one-arm hug West. “Then you show up in bandages!”

“Guys, it’s really no big deal,” West laughed, uncomfortably. “It’s just a broken bone and a dislocated shoulder.”

“You’re our friend, West,” Verity said, catching West severely off-guard.

“F-friend?” he repeated.

“Yes, dummy!” She said, and punched him (lightly) in the good arm. 

Jimmy, assured that West was okay, went over to the platform the Sunstreaker mimic was on, hauling himself up. “Mind if I take a look?” he asked Ratchet.

“Be my guest, but I’ve been over that tons already,” Ratchet said, gesturing. “What do you think you’re gonna find?”

“Eh, you’d be surprised,” Jimmy said, digging around, still sniffling a little. “To me, vehicles are like archaeological digs. There’s troves of information to be unlocked. For example, this --” he peeled a bit of the metal up easily. “This is an ultra-light alloy, probably to allow for maximum decimation. Only three suppliers I know make this domestically.”

“And -- and they’d have records of client purchases!” Verity agreed, coming away from West to implore Ratchet. “And you probably have all kinds of fancy tech, stuff that could get into our primitive systems no problem.”

“And I know how both sets of systems work,” West volunteered, nodding. “I could be the computer guy -- give myself something to do.”

“I should take this to Prowl,” Ratchet mused, “But he’d probably dismiss it or sit on it. Question is, after my recent clutch of indiscretions, do I really want to stick my neck out again? Hm… I guess so.”

  
  


\-----------------------------

  
  


West directed Ratchet on what to type, sitting on the table in front of the keyboard with Verity. “What do you see, Ver?” he asked, glancing over at her.

“Those are bulk-manufacture, for the export market. How about this one, Jimmy?”

“Ultralite America… Yeah, could be,” Jimmy mused from behind them.

“Can you sort the orders by size and date? Chances are it would’ve been recent, and chances are they only took what they needed.”

“Looks like one in Beaver, and another -- a custom car outlet in Fort Wayne, Indiana,” West mused.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Verity grinned, turning back to Ratchet as Jimmy looked over his shoulder, too. They shouted “Road trip!” in unison.

“Hey, wait, take me!” West said, scooting to better look over his shoulder. “No way in hell y’all are leaving me here!”

“I hope  _ none  _ of you are thinking of going anywhere,” Ironhide said, emerging from the shadowy doorway,  _ “...without me!” _

  
  


\---------------------------------------

  
  


“I know crime happens,” Verity said, “but isn’t this a little over the top? This seems a little on the extreme side.”

“Right,” Jimmy led, thinking. “That’s a lot of security for some wheeltrims and dodgy in-car radio.”

“And it’s sophisticated,” Ironhide agreed. “Maybe  _ too  _ sophisticated. I could be wrong, Jimmy, but I think there’s something in there that’s a holomatter reader.”

“As in, the stuff your faux drivers are made out of?” Verity asked, craning to see into the shop.

“Right.”

“Then this has to be the place!” Very asserted. “What are we waiting for?”

“A solid, risk-free strategy,” Ironhide responded. “If these are the people who have Sunstreaker --”

“And Hunter!”

“And Hunter, then we know they have a habit of covering their tracks, explosively. We have to be very careful. When an opportunity comes up, we seize the initiative.” Ironhide commed for Ratchet. “Ratchet, what’s the news?”

“There’s a rear loading bay back here, Ironhide,” Ratchet responded, with West in his driver’s seat. He’d insisted to come along, refusing to be left by himself -- and Ratchet figured that was probably for the best. “I can cryo-freeze the external pressure pads and motion sensors, but if there are holo-readers, we so much as stick a virtual toe inside, we’re blown.”

“So let us go in, me and Verity!” Jimmy said, voice coming from Ratchet’s comms suite. 

“Yeah,” Verity said, “and before you roll out the ‘this isn’t our fight’ speech, this is our fight. When they took Sunstreaker, they took Hunter too. Chances are that was a mistake, and we have to get in there before whoever has him decides that he’s surplus to requirements.”

Ratchet grunted, and West started to get out, pulling the handle on the door. The lock flipped down. “Hey! What are you doing?”

“Nuh-uh, kid,” Ratchet said, firmly. “You’re staying right in this cab. It’s one thing to let you come along, but I’m sure as hell not letting you go in.”

“Aw, what?” West complained, sitting back against the seat and grimacing at his chest pain. “I’m fine, I promise! I’ve totally had worse!”

“So?”

“So… so… um…  _ so!”  _ West shouted, putting his good hand on his hip. “Because -- yeah!”

“Convincing,” Ratchet deadpanned, “but you’re staying right here. Your friends can handle this. Here, kid --” Ratchet fired some kind of beam at the garage bay door in time for Verity and Jimmy to round the corner. The corrugated metal melted like Silly Putty on the stove, strings of plasticky-looking metal dripping to the ground. At the same time, a 3-D display of the inside of the store popped up on the hologram. “You can be the computer guy.”

Verity and Jimmy waved to West before going inside -- West waved back and watched the display, looking at their dots pop up inside the facility. “Fine,” he agreed, begrudgingly. “I know you’re doing this to keep me occupied.”

“A bored human is a destructive human,” Ratchet said, a tinge of humor in his voice. “Primus forbid you get too bored and get it into your head to  _ do  _ something.”

West watched Verity and Jimmy loiter around near the back wall, before abruptly beginning to walk through it, a new scan pulse suddenly revealing that they were headed down a set of stairs. “Ironhide’s specs didn’t say there was a basement, did they?” West asked, suspicious. 

“No, they didn’t,” Ratchet hummed, engine purring. “It seems we very much do have the right place.” They waited around a few minutes, West kicking his legs gently in his seat. “How is your rib feeling?” Ratchet pestered, sternly. “Worse, better, normal?”

“It’s fine, Ratchet.” West laughed, even as a scan washed over the interior of the cab. “Really! Yeah, it hurts, but it’s a broken rib. Of course it’s gonna hurt. And my shoulder’s fine too!”

“The --  _ tylenol  _ we picked up isn’t working?”

“No, it’s definitely working,” West said, nodding. “But I broke a rib. It still hurts!”

“Hmmph.” Ratchet grumbled and settled back down. “You’ll tell me if you feel worse.”

“Yes, I will!” West laughed. “You’re as bad as Flux!” The air in the car went sour, and West regretted the slip of the tongue. “Er -- sorry. I just -- she’s… different. When she’s not fighting.”

“No, it’s fine.” Ratchet sighed. “I wasn’t aware she… fussed, like that.”

“Oh my god, all the time!” West groaned, leaning his head back against the seat. “Last time I saw her it was, ‘you should sleep more,’ and ‘you need to take better care of yourself’ and ‘what are you doing out alone all the time’ and ‘remember to wear sunscreen!’ It was constant.” West leaned back up. “Say -- not to switch the subject, but, what did Prime say to me sticking around?”

“He hadn’t made a decision to my knowledge before the crew had to leave,” Ratchet said. “They’re handling an incident in Brasnya now. It might be on the radio.” He turned his radio/comms suite on, turning the channels till they reached international news. No luck; apparently it had either already been covered or hadn’t been covered yet, or was being kept quiet.

“Wanna play I Spy?” West said, boredly.

“There’s nothing to spy,” Ratchet complained. “Can’t you sit still for five minutes?”

“I feel useless sitting around here. Ooh -- how about Twenty Questions?”

“You already play that all the time!”

“Fine, fine. Er -- how about Make Me Laugh? I can go first.”

“Hmph! Fine. I find human humor to be a little simple for my taste, but you can try.”

West immediately grinned. Ratchet was certainly underestimating him. “Well,” he said in Neocybex, and told a very raunchy joke that was way funnier in its native language. Ratchet went through a shudder where he was parked and his vents hitched.

“Nice try, kid,” he said, but he sounded a little strained. “If you think naughty humor can get me --”

“See, it’s funny,” West continued, still in Neocybex, “because it’s about spikes.”

Another strangled noise from Ratchet’s vents -- his engine revved too. “You had better stop,” he said, flustered. “What if we miss a signal from Verity and Jimmy?”

“They’re fine! Okay, I’ve got another one. Guy’s sitting in the doctor’s office, right?”

“Uh…  _ huh _ …” Ratchet said, suspicious.

“Well, the doctor walks in and says, ‘I have some bad news. You’re going to have to stop masturbating.’ The guy’s confused, he’s like, ‘I don’t understand, doc, why?’” West giggled. “Doctor says, ‘Well, because I’m trying to examine you.’”

Ratchet finally lost his cool, bursting out in cackling laughter so hard it rattled the cab, ambulance frame rocking back and forth. Every time it started to trail off he just cracked himself up again, and again, until finally he wheezed and shuddered and chuckled, recovering.

“Oh, I wasn’t expecting that,” he said, breathlessly. “That was good.”

“I wasn’t expecting dirty humor to work,” West snickered. “I just told the first joke to catch you off guard. Then it stuck, and I was like, ooh, Ratch has a nasty side!”

“Stop,” Ratchet chuckled. “Those days are long behind me!”

“So you do!” West leaned his elbows on his knees, and then grimaced, straightening back up. “Oof. Anyways, -- you have to tell me!”

“No, I do not!”

“Please?” West blinked his baby blues (baby grays, really) and frowned, pouting. “I have a broken rib… and a punctured lung… and my shoulder’s dislocated… I think that might help me feel better.”

“Oh, please!” Ratchet cried, laughing, but West didn’t budge, making himself look pitiful. Ratchet squirmed, frame rocking back and forth. “Stop it, kid,” he said, unconvincingly. “Stop, you’re makin’ me feel bad.”

West didn’t let up, pushing just a little more…

“Oh, fine!” Ratchet huffed. “...In med school, I was called the Party Ambulance.”

“No! Fucking! Way!” West laughed immediately, beaming. “No way! You?”

“You’d be surprised!” Ratchet said, and then quieted, humming. “Hm. Neither Ironhide nor I have heard from your friends in ten minutes.”

West took another look at the readout. “They haven’t moved, either.”

“They could just be, ignoring everything we told them,” Ratchet mused. “You all are, ah… rather free-spirited. Or they could be incapacitated. Or dead.”

“I’m going in,” Ironhide decided, and around the front of the store they heard an engine rev, another rev a moment or two later, and then a CRASH along with tinkling glass and clattering metal.

“Primus!” Ratchet swore, and quickly swerved around to the front of the store to see Ironhide having driven through the front display, laying in the wreckage of the display window and its glass, metal, and display rims.

“Ratchet, there’s an extra room back here, down in the basement,” Ironhide said. “I’m going in.”

“Yes, well…” Ratchet said, as a police dispatch sounded on the radio scanner. “Do it quickly, we’re about to have company.”

“Frag, Ratchet,” Ironhide said, mere moments later. “It’s bad.”

“What is it, Ironhide?” Ratchet questioned, engine revving.

“It’s bad. Get a fix on my position and get your holoform in here, to these exact coordinates. And once you’re there, get to cutting!”

“Got it.” Ratchet projected his holoform while West just chewed his nails, biting down hard. “We’ve got law enforcement inbound. You should back off and get to a safe distance.”

“Can’t,” Ironhide said. “My holoform doesn’t have the range and I need to be at maximum saturation when you break through.”

“Mm.” Ratchet sat in silence for a moment longer. “I’ve got Verity, West,” He said. “Ironhide just handed her to me. Jimmy’s coming up next.” He spoke again to Ironhide. “Once they’re both up, get yourself out of here!”

His holoform came running out of the shop, and threw the kids into the back of the ambulance, slamming the doors. Then he turned his sirens on and screamed out of the parking lot. The cops didn’t even bat an eye, even pulling aside for the ambulance to make way for Ratchet to leave the parking lot. Behind them, before Ironhide could make a break for it, the building exploded in a mushroom cloud, lighting up the road with Ratchet’s harsh shadow in front of them. Finally, when they got to a safe distance, Ratchet turned off the sirens, and just focused on getting back to Lake Michigan. West fought to stay awake about an hour in, eyelids forcibly trying to slam closed as he leaned against the driver’s window, chin propped in his fist. He yawned, hard, and then shook his head, blinking to keep himself awake.

“Go ahead and recharge, kid,” Ratchet said. “Trust me, I don’t need any help driving.”

“M’fine,” West said, yawning again. “M’fine!”

“You need sleep, you’ve been up for hours.” Ratchet flicked on the radio to a station for music and turned the volume down. “Get some sleep, kid.”

West didn’t have it in him to argue anymore.


	4. Another One Bites the Dust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The danger from the SM-40 and the Nevada Decepticon bunker has passed, but the aftereffects are still felt. As such, the Autobots have no choice but to move the Ark-19. However, Megtron, growing more and more desperate, has called in Sixshot to wreak destruction on his behalf, scattering the Autobots in the Gulf of Mexico and sending Ratchet and the humans on the run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! another chapter out! By the way -- i'll probably mass-edit these once I have a better idea of where this story is going. I'm pretty closely following canon for now, but once I feel like I can tweak canon a little more without irrevocably wrecking something I can probably let loose a little more.

“You’re sure?” Optimus said, pinching his chin in his fingers. Nightbeat had summoned them all to discuss something quite curious, and the humans were all sleeping in their designated room -- it was the perfect time to discuss Nightbeat’s findings. Optimus felt it best to keep a healthy distance from the indigent species of this planet...

“As I can be,” Nightbeat summed up. “These threads all seem to have a common origin, suggesting a concerted overall strategy and some form of guiding intelligence. Let me break it down for you…” Nightbeat cleared his throat, getting into that Mystery Unraveled Voice he liked to break out for times like these. “We know that Rogue-1 -- that’s our terminated fellow in the tan suit -- somehow located and then penetrated the original Decepticon command bunker in Nebraska. He took digital images, which provoked a response in the form of Runabout and Runamuck, with a healthy dose of Thundercracker. However, by the time they isolated the target, the images had been downloaded to the SM-40, which was then…  _ appropriated  _ by Verity Carlo. Via Ratchet, both made their way here, which could be the end of the story, apart from…”

“The homing device you mentioned in your briefing.” Prowl groaned, putting his face in his hand, likely already calculating the numerous scenarios in which this could go wrong.

“Exactly.” Nightbeat nodded. “Clearly, whoever Rogue-1 served drew no distinction between Autobot or Decepticon -- they just needed **_a_** _Cybertronian_ for their machinations, and set about getting one for a trenchant purpose. I asked Bumblebee to scout around the shoreline of Lake Michigan. He found a large amount of state-of-the-art surveillance and scanning equipment. They’d been watching you all for _days,_ maybe _weeks._ Right up until they made their move and took Sunstreaker.”

“But -- who are they? What do they want?” Prowl asked, gesturing.

“The who, I don’t know.” Nightbeat turned partially back to the keyboard and called up an image of a business card with only an “M” on its front. “This was found clutched in Verity’s hand after her close call in Fort Wayne. I could find no match in almost six-hundred thousand data entries world wide.”

“M?” Optimus questioned, thinking.

“As for the what,” Nightbeat led, “I don’t know that, either. But Hot Rod and Wheeljack are on their way to Warsaw, Indiana, to snatch Ironhide from getting crushed by the scrapyard’s hydraulic pressers -- so given this ‘M’s ‘M.O.’ so to speak, I have a feeling we might be seeing them again soon.”

“Your recommendations?” Optimus asked, finally standing up.

“Move Ark-19,” Nightbeat said, gesturing around. “I’ve locked out the signal, but our position here is  _ beyond  _ compromised.”

“Agreed. Prowl?”

“I’ll make the arrangements, Prime.”

“Hm…” Bumblebee murmured, mirroring Optimus’s earlier chin-pinching gesture. “Maybe. Yeah. Uh, I could try loading a viral Seeker program onto the homing frequency and  _ backtrack  _ them via their  _ own  _ tech.”

“Do it,” Prime commanded. “We’ve been on the defensive for long enough. It’s  _ high  _ time we kicked back!”

  
  


\------------------------------------

  
  


**_Decepticon Command Bunker: Oregon._ **

  
  


“You understand I want them hunted down --  _ eradicated!” _ Megatron shouted, growling. “I want devastation!”

Sixshot spread his arms. “I -- er, yeah. I get that, Megatron, it’s just -- I’m more of a Phase Six kind of bot. Shape this planet’s in, it doesn’t look more than in the early stages of  _ Phase Two _ to me. You sure you want me out there, doing what I do, how I do it? It’s just that -- when I’m done, they’ll  _ know  _ it!”

“I no longer care. Phase Two, Three -- we are beyond the structure of phases here, it no longer matters.” Megatron stomped forwards to lean in, clenching a fist. “We are in exceptional circumstances here -- that require  _ extreme  _ measures!”

Off to the side, Runabout and Runamuck watched from their stations. “How hard do you think the Major General would chew him out for calling in Sixshot now?” Runabout murmured to Runamuck.

Runamuck shivered. “My plating smarts just thinking about it.”

“Just point me and pull the trigger,” Sixshot declared, giving Megatron the thumbs-up.

“What’s he doing here?” Thundercracker hissed, pulling Runabout and Runamuck into the hall to discuss. Astrotrain was waiting as well.

“Apart from ruining everything?” Runabout said, grumbling.

“Right.” Thundercracker shook his head. “A lot of careful, by-the-numbers strategy is about to go out the window. Megatron’s lost it, big time!”

“I know,” Astrotrain muttered. “But is anyone here, right now, willing to tell him that?”

“I know someone who would, but she hightailed it back to her ship and took off as soon as she was out of the cryo-regeneration chamber,” Runamuck said, shrugging.

“Yeah.” Astrotrain sighed. “But I know someone  _ else  _ who might.”

  
  


\----------------------------------------------

  
  


West woke blearily to Verity and Hunter pestering Jazz about something. Something about Sunstreaker, and Hunter… He yawned, trying so hard to wake up, but he just couldn’t seem to pull himself out of half-sleep. He floated comfortably -- or, relatively comfortably, his rib still ached even though it had been a few weeks. His lung and shoulder had thankfully healed up, but his rib was a little slow to join the party.

He did, however, wake up when the ground beneath him shuddered and groaned, jerking awake. “Wha --”

“Welcome to the party,” Verity said, arms crossed as she and Jimmy stared in consternation at the closed door. “They’re moving the Ark-19.”

“Sweet, where to?” West yawned, running fingers through his beachy waves. He grumbled as they snagged and rifled around in his bag for a brush, settling on brushing his hair out. Brown was starting to come in at the roots again… god dammit. “Aw… I have to bleach my hair in a few days again. I don’t have any bleach!”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Verity said.

“I take my appearance  _ very  _ seriously,” West preened, combing his unruly hair from the bottom up. “As a practicing fruit in a world of meat market, appearance is critical. Besides, if I’m going to die I’d like to be a pretty corpse.”

“There’s something wrong with you,” Jimmy half-laughed.

“A few things, actually,” West joked back, grunting as he pulled out the last few tangles and pulled his hair back with a claw-clip, letting it just hang down to his neck. “There. So, where to?”

“Gulf of Mexico, last I heard,” Verity said.

“Suh- _ weet!” _ West beamed. “I’ve been missing a tan lately. It’ll be good to get some sun.”

“Are you seriously not worried about anything?” Verity shouted, eyebrows drawn low. “Not -- not  _ Sunstreaker, _ not  _ Hunter, _ not -- not why we have to move?”

“Honey, when you spend  _ all  _ your time with giant transforming robots, you learn to take the hits as they come,” West dismissed, half-smiling as he glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. He grunted again as he leaned down to put his hairbrush away. “What can we do about it now? We can at the very least, wait until we hit the Gulf and they let us outta this room.” 

They all sat in silence for a while, which West was fine with. He laid back down, trying to stretch out to relieve the ache in his rib. After what felt like hours of sitting, and waiting, Jimmy and Verity looked like they were about to blow up again. West sighed, sat up and looked around, deciding to defuse with a little light conversation. “This thing rides like a dream, eh?”

Just then, the ship lurched, nearly throwing West off his perch. Instinctively he grabbed his backpack and made sure it was zipped, securing it on both shoulders and around his waist. “Hehe,” he mumbled, sweating a little -- “kidding, I guess.”

“Maybe it’s just some turbulence,” Verity said, nervously.

A massive  **_BOOM_ ** rocked the ship and alarms went off. “Yeah, of the ordnance kind!” West shouted. “What the hell are they  _ doing  _ out there?” His feet felt lighter than the ground as his stomach floated with the familiar sensation of going down in an elevator, only ten billion times worse. 

Ratchet threw open the door and jerked his head. “C’mon -- go, go! We got hit, we’re going down! To an escape pod,  _ now!” _

West didn’t argue twice, grabbing at whoevers’ hands he hit first as they followed Ratchet into the pod. He closed them in, and locked the pod doors, activating the ejection sequence. The pod screamed off in a trajectory far away from the downed Ark-19. West, over the roar of the air around the pod, heard it hit the water of the Gulf and a few moments later, explode, the  **_BOOM_ ** of the explosion sending out a shockwave that rattled the escape pod, just a shudder. They hit the ground ages away, and piled out of the escape pod, Jimmy carrying Verity between himself and West. The impact certainly hadn’t done any favors to West’s rib, but at least it didn’t feel any worse. Verity meanwhile was bleeding from a head wound, groaning and disoriented. The three hid behind Ratchet as he blew the escape pod sky high, saying something about not featuring on CNN. Then he transformed, passenger door flying open. “Get in!”

“Verity’s hurt,” Jimmy said, helping West pack her into the ambulance and get her situated.

“M’fine,” she slurred.

“She needs treatment,” West insisted. “Real bad.”

“Well, luckily for you all,” Ratchet said, holoform appearing as the door slammed shut and he took off, flying down the road, “This isn’t just for show.” He turned his sirens on and a small mobile supplies table folded out of his dash. “However -- it’d be best if we can sew and go!” He gunned it a little more, leaving a trail of dust in his wake. Then he gathered some sanitary gauze and began dabbing at the wound, lifting Verity’s hat away and trying to see the damage. ‘It looks mostly superficial,” he mused. “Probably a concussion, though.” He spared a glance towards West. “How’s that rib feeling? Breathing okay?”

“My lung is fine, rib hurts just about the same,” West said, all business. “Does she need stitches?”

“Maybe,” Ratchet said, cleaning around the wound. “Might not, though.”

“So -- what hit us?” Jimmy said.

“Sixshot,” Ratchet said, grimly. “He’s very bad news. I --”

“Wait, wait, I’m sorry -- who?” West snapped, freezing in his rummaging around in his bag. “Who is it?”

“Sixshot.”

“Why, who’s Sixshot?” Jimmy questioned, nervously.”

“Remember how Ratchet said earlier that you don’t wanna know what Phase Six is?” West said, feeling the color drain from his phase. “Well,  _ Sixshot’s _ the guy you call for Phase Six.”

“Wait, the --” Jimmy gulped. “The --” he mimicked West’s past gesture of drawing his finger across his throat. “The --  _ that?” _

“Yes!” West turned to Ratchet. “What the  _ hell  _ is a Phase Sixer doing here?”

“No idea,” Ratchet said. “We just have to hope we’re small-fry enough to slip under his ra --” Blaster shots peppered the ground around them and Ratchet swerved to avoid them, dirt and dust flying up behind them in a cloud. “Hn --! So much for sanguine optimism.” Overhead, Sixshot overshot them and looped around, coming in for the kill…

West had never put much stock in life. Thus far, his life had been nasty, full of pain and manipulation, and short. He could sometimes blink his baby blues to get what he wanted, and he could scrape out a living like that, be somewhat approaching comfortable with that. But he didn’t think of it as life, not really. But now -- with a Phase Sixer bearing down on him and his friends -- he could think of six dozen better ways to die that  _ didn’t  _ involve three other people he liked getting vaporized into atoms. West closed his eyes and shielded himself from the view with his arm, not wanting to see what was going to come next. He thought of his friends back in Iowa -- Wesley, Ehsan, Rose, Reed. Did they miss him? He hadn’t even had time to catch up with them when he’d gotten to the Ark. They had no idea where he was. He felt Ratchet make a hard swerve to the left, engine revving, and peeked, seeing only a wide empty field in front of them.

“Great,” Ratchet said,  _ “Doomsday personified _ at our six. And only the  _ great wide open _ for company.”

Two US raptor jets swooped down from above, bypassing the fleeing ambulance entirely. “Unidentified aircraft,” one commanded. “You are in violation of a forced no-fly zone. Land now, or you’ll be shot down. This is your last warning!”

“Whew,” West said, shaking his head. “Nice knowing you, boys.”

“There’s nothing we can do?” Jimmy asked, jaw dropping.

“West is right -- we can appreciate the precious few seconds they just gave us... to put some distance between Sixshot and us!” And with that, he activated his nitro-boosters, flattening everyone to the seats like they were part of the upholstery.

“W-where… are we going?” Verity asked, struggling to speak.

“We’re following more or less the Ark-19’s original trajectory,” Ratchet said, unaffected by the G-force. “By my reckoning, that should take us across the state line, into Florida.” He finally slowed down the nitro boost and merged onto a road that took him to a highway, finally filtering into a city.

“Great, so we can go to the beach,” West said, panting. “How is this good, exactly? Clearly Sixshot doesn’t care about infiltration protocols.”

“No, but  _ we  _ can,” Ratchet said, pulling into an ambulance parking lot and taking one of the empty spots, quieting his engine and turning off his headlights. “Everyone in the back. I’ll deactivate my avatar.”

The group shimmied through the window to the back of the ambulance one at time, West ignoring the stabbing pain in his rib until he couldn’t anymore, and he had to flip over onto his back so Jimmy could pull him through by the shoulders and let him get his footing. For a tense, few, quiet minutes, all was on tenterhooks.

“Do you think we lost him?” Verity hissed.

“Phase Sixers aren’t exactly renowned for their intelligence,” West murmured. “They’re just killing machines.”

“So -- you think he’s dumb enough we could-?”

“Uh-uh,” West shook his head. “They’re about as smart as your average Cybertronian, just… outfitted with things that make nukes look like farts.”

“We’re going to blend in in plain sight,” Ratchet whispered to them.

“So we’re just going to hide?” Verity hissed. “No plan beyond that? Just hiding?”

“Um…” Ratchet sweated, “Yes.”

“Great,” Jimmy groaned, until a huge ruckus a ways away shook the earth. Outside, people screamed and panicked. A cannon shot later and somewhere uncomfortably close blew up.

“What’s he  _ doing  _ out there?” Jimmy hissed.

“Process of elimination,” Ratchet said, nervously. “Hitting every parking lot with an ambulance. Local rules of engagement don’t apply to Sixshot. Hold on tight -- I’m going to make a break for it! Get back in the cab so you can sit tight in the seat!”

They went through the song and dance of squirming through the bolthole, West ignoring his ribs this time -- it barely registered, honestly. Barely more than a twinge in his side and he was in the seat, watching the landscape fly by them down the small dirt road with the Gulf stretched out next to them. Ratchet abruptly slammed on brakes, screeching to a halt, and threw open the door. “Get out,” he said, “No buts, no misplaced loyalty, no protests, just -- go. I simply can’t protect you with you here. It’s not you all he’s after -- I doubt you even blip on his radar.”

“But --” West said, eyes widening.

“I said no buts!” Ratchet shouted, revving his engine. The others were already crawling out, and Verity pulled West along, out of the seat, as it really sank in.

“No, Ratchet!” He howled, reaching for the ambulance even as the others pulled him back and Ratchet slammed the door, speeding off as Sixshot barreled right past them after him. “Ratchet, _no,_ ** _please!”_** He watched them come to some kind of outcropping in the water -- watched Ratchet spin a half-doughnut and transform, fixing his gun on Sixshot, and watched in horror as Sixshot pounced. He expected Ratchet to get shredded right there --

“Look!” Jimmy cried, pointing. “It’s -- it’s Prime and the others!”

So it was; West watched everyone that had been on the Ark climb out of the water, unloading a barrage at Sixshot that pinged off him like gadflies. West watched Bumblebee take a direct hit to the chest and Hardhead transform into tank mode and start shooting.

“Yes!” Jimmy shouted, pumping his fist. “Go Autobots!”

“If only I felt reassured!” Verity said. West sighed a gust of a breath and his shaky knees gave out on him, plopping his butt right into the dirt.

“Yeah, uh.” Jimmy cleared his throat. “Sixshot, he’s like this Decepticon weapon of last resort, right?”

“Right,” West moaned into his hands, trying to catch his breath. He’d lost his hair clip. His hair was loose, just brushing his shoulders.

“Which means… those carefully planned phases Ratchet mentioned are, like, gone. Fast forward to the end of the world.”

“And what’s more,” Verity led, as helicopter noises sounded overhead, making the wind pick up and snatch at their hair and clothes. West had lost his hair clip sometime in the fray, no way he was getting that back. It was a stupid, _stupid_ thing, but he started to cry over it, sniffling into his hands. A _hair clip?_ **_Really?_** He tried to listen to Verity to distract himself. “The can of worms is open, the cat’s out of the bag -- all live at five!”

West looked up to see the news helicopter just as a drone flew overhead, making a recon pass. “Oh, no,” he groaned, getting up. “The military!”

“They’ll blow ‘em sky high,” Verity concurred, realization dawning. “We have to stop them!”

“There’s a cop, over there,” Jimmy said, pointing to the cop directing traffic to turn everyone away from the fight.

“Like that’ll do jack and all shit!” West shouted, waving them along He sniffed the last remnants of his runny nose and ignored the cool air breezing where his cheeks were still a little wet. “C’mon, ignore the pig.”

“I agree,” Verity said, pointing towards the harbor. “Look -- we can jack a boat, warn Prime and the others!”

“I --” Jimmy said, and then sighed. “Fine,” he said, and ran off after them, down the hillside to the dock. He jumped into an empty boat, and started fiddling around with its internals.

“Hurry up!”

“I am hurrying,” Jimmy said. “It’s a little different from an automobile’s ignition, I -- aha! Thar she blows. C’mon -- jump in!” He helped Verity and West in, eyebrows going up. “You sure this was a bright idea?”

“No,” Verity said, “But we have to warn the Autobots. Based on what we saw and heard back there, they’re calling in air strikes.” The boat took off, engine roaring as they started flying across the bay, “And I doubt they’ll give a damn who’s who!” The boat bounced on the slightly choppy water, making West feel a little sick, but he ignored it as they rapidly approached the fighting.

“Ratchet!” Verity called, shouting through her cupped hands.  _ “Ratchet!” _

“Eh?” the ambulance grunted, turning around. His brow flew up. “Kids?” When he processed, he turned towards them, pointing them away. “Please, you  _ can’t  _ be here! We’re  _ this close _ to the big shutdown, I --”

“Just listen to me,” Verity pleaded. “The US Military and Air Force are about to throw everything they’ve got at you. We’re talking scorched earth!”

“I see,” Ratchet murmured, and then turned around. “Prime, it’s Ratchet,” he commed. “This whole region is  _ hot. _ Local armed forces inbound.” He seemed to wait for a response, listening intently. Then he leaned down and extended his hands. “With me, kids. We’re making the jump outta here. Nightbeat can beam us all up.”

“Like Scotty, huh?” West joked halfheartedly, climbing in after Jimmy and Verity. They left the boat idling where it was.

“Yeah, sure. Take hold,” he said, leaning to pick up Bumblebee as well where he lay unconscious. “You’ll need to be in direct physical contact. Quickly!”

West watched as a green beam of light gathered around them -- he barely had time to laugh in his own head about how he was finally getting tractor-beamed before everything went dark.

  
  


\--------------------------------------

  
  


“Verity -- West -- Jimmy!” Ratchet shouted, cradling their gray bodies in his hands as he panicked. His spark thundered, vents flaring to dump heat. “N-no --  _ no! _ I didn’t think -- the jump was too traumatic for Terran systems! Life functions -- they’re  _ terminated!” _ He bowed his head for just a moment, struggling to breathe and think. “I --  _ no! _ Clear a table!” He ran towards the first cleared space, laying them down face-up one after the other, hooking them up to monitors. 

“Doc?” Jazz panicked, “are they dead?  _ Doc!?” _

“Yes!” Ratchet thundered, and they’ll remain that way unless I do something -- how long have they been flatline?”

“5.62 earth minutes!”

“Too long,” Ratchet fretted, reading an electrical jolt for Jimmy and Verity, handing another one of the tools off to Jazz. “Take West. If I do bring them back, there’s every chance they might have critical brain damage! I should’ve -- I should’ve considered the fragility of the human bio-system before piggybacking them onto our jump! Jimmy, West, Verity -- they trusted me, and I let them down!” He fired up the voltage, delivering a shock to Jimmy and Verity’s chests. Jazz followed suit. “Come  _ on… Come  _ **_on!”_ **

The two bots watched the monitors, watching the flatline suddenly blip with activity. Verity coughed weakly, and Jimmy grunted. West wheezed, eyebrows twitching.

“You --” Jazz dropped his tool, laughing right out loud. “You did it, Doc! You -- woah, what happened to attitude control?” He mumbled to himself, stumbling back.

“You need some time in the CR chamber,” Ratchet murmured, coming over to support him. “You took big hits today.”

“Sunstreaker, Ironhide, Bumblebee, me,” Jazz said, “all of us outta commission or missing. Let’s face it, Doc -- we’re in a pretty sorry state!”

  
  


\-------------------------------

  
  
  


West woke with a wheeze, sitting bolt upright. Jimmy was already sitting up in a chair nearby, crafted from the movable floor panels. At first, West thought they were on the Ark, but the layout was different. Verity was asleep, on another table. 

“Hey, you’re awake.” Jimmy waved in mock salute.

“I think I just met God,” West panted. “She’s  _ definitely  _ a woman. What happened?”

“Uh, we died,” Jimmy said, nodding as his eyebrows shot up. “For like, five minutes. The ‘Bots didn’t take into account how those beams would mess with our systems.”

“Wait, I was  _ dead?” _

“We all were.”

West stared down at his hands, and flexed them into fists and relaxed them. He half smiled, after a moment. “Cool.” Then he looked around. “Er, where are we now?”

“Ark-32,” Jimmy said. “There’s some kinda situation from what I could gather, and the bots are headed to some place called Garrus-7.”

“Garrus…” West mused, humming. “I -- I don’t know that name.”

“Well, whatever it is, it’s pretty close by, because we’re the closest to it.”

“And I bet we won’t see any action.” West groaned, leaning back.

“West, we almost -- we  _ did  _ die.” Jimmy took a shaky breath. “How are you -- how are you champing at the bit for  _ more?” _

“I --” West sighed. “I dunno,” he said, softly, shrugging with one shoulder. “I guess -- when I’m out there, cracking ribs, getting thrown around, in the heat of things, forgetting I’m just some kid from Iowa with daddy issues… makes me feel alive.”

“Hmm.” Jimmy looked at his hands, as Verity stirred and sat up. 

Wheeljack poked his head into the room. “Good, you’re all awake,” he said, businesslike. “Are you feeling well enough to move around?”

“Yeah,” West said, scooting around to face him. “Why?”

“Because,” he said, producing some kind of scanner. “I need your measurements.”

  
  


\--------------------------------------

  
  


“This is absolutely  _ sick,” _ West grinned, as Wheeljack gave him the compact backpack. “You’re kidding me, Jackie.”

“Try it out, see how it works,” Wheeljack said. “If it does, I’ll go ahead and make one for Verity and Jimmy.”

“Why me first?” West asked, clicking the button on the shoulder.

“You were jumping at the chance the most,” Wheeljack said, as the armor folded out and around West’s body, making a sleek, streamlined mechsuit. A helmet folded over his head and finally a visor slipped into place. “Go ahead, move around. See if anything pinches.”

West twisted, and then did a cartwheel, jumping in place after he stood upright again. He shook himself out, and did some stretches. “Feels good,” he said, voice filtering through the sound system in the helmet.

“It’s temperature regulated, and shock absorbent,” Wheeljack said, nodding. “The storage mode is only a prototype, I’m hoping to make it much more compact.” West turned to look up at him, seeing him through the HUD. It had oxygen saturation, oxygen levels, vital signs, comm links… West was damn near giddy. “Oh, and it’s airtight. Space and water-worthy when fully activated. You have a limited oxygen reserve -- about thirty minutes’ worth. It’s not automatic, but you can activate it with a button.”

“Leave it to you to say that a spaceworthy and waterworthy mechsuit is a ‘prototype’ because of the delivery system,” West laughed.

“Hey, I can think of at least six improvements. I just wanted to know if I’m on the right track.”

“Yeah.” West deactivated the suit and handed it back over. “I think Jimmy and Verity are gonna  _ love  _ this.”

  
  



	5. Rocket Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After being defeated by Megatron and the Decepticons and banished to Cybertron, the Autobots and their humans are finally making a triumpant return, aboard Omega Supreme's ship. But West's experience with Devastator and the war has changed him, and not entirely for the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning:
> 
> \- mild blood, described vaguely. Look for the "***" to know when it begins and ends.

“I just don’t understand  _ why  _ we  _ have  _ to go back to Earth,” West said, in his chair on the bridge. They’d made a little one for him, where he sat with his armor retracted. It ran in a stripe down his spine, grafted into his nervous system, and West thought it fit in very nicely with his tattoos, even if the skin around the attachment points had taken a while to settle down and stop scarring up. It was also a little hard to get used to, what with all the mechanics being essentially a new spinal cord poking out of his back (even if it was very shallowly), but he’d learned how to sit comfortably. 

Wheeljack had been hesitant to graft it so deeply. “That’s pretty permanent, kid,” he’d said. “I was thinking it would be stored in… in  _ gauntlets _ , or an under-skeleton.”

“That’s way too bulky,” West had argued, knowing he was right. “I know it -- you know it -- and what about easy access? By the time I’ve managed to get it on, I could be blown to bits. If you make it neural, I can control it as fast as I can think about it.” They both ignored the fact that West had already been handily ‘blown to bits’ when it was a manual activation.

Wheeljack had only had a couple more weak protests, but West was right. Wheeljack had tried giving Verity her own power suit, before they’d gotten kicked off Earth, but by the time he’d had it ready, she’d stowed away with the Wreckers, leaving just a note. 

Good riddance. West was still _ definitely not sore _ about being  _ abandoned  _ like that. If she couldn’t stick around, she couldn’t stick around. Jimmy, however, had stayed. He’d refused a power suit. 

And Hunter had joined them again! They’d rescued him from the Machination, shortly before Verity left. Neither he nor Jimmy was as…  _ enthusiastic  _ about being so “one with the robots” as West was, but he supposed that was their problem. Hunter understood him a little better, but… in a different way. Not the same. And then he had gone missing, after they’d managed to separate him and Sunstreaker, before That Day.

“Because,” Prime said, from the Captain’s chair, and god it was good to see him functional again, “I fear that Megatron, in our absence, has had the unchecked opportunity to wreak havoc.”

“He always has that opportunity,” West grumbled, crossing his arms and pouting -- knowing as well as everyone else on the bridge what Optimus meant.

“I sense that there’s something deeper to your hesitation.”

“No!” West shouted, indignantly, looking away. “No way.”

“He’s afraid we’ll dump him on Earth and make a break for it. Even after he stayed with us on Cybertron and helped us against that Swarm,” Jazz said, from his station by West. His hand came down to (gently) ruffle West’s hair, shading his whole body like the leaf of a fern. “Ain’t that right, kiddo? Not afraid of the  _ marauding Cons _ or anything, just a big heap of abandonment issues. Figures!”

“No!” West denied, scoffing uncomfortably. “No way, uh. Totally not.”

“I understand Verity’s decision -- and everything else -- has been hard on you,” Optimus began. “But, West, you are a valuable part of this team.”

“Yeah, well.” West puffed air through his cheeks and looked out the window, watching the dreadful, pale blue dot of Earth slowly get closer. “Doesn’t mean it feels like you guys won’t say, ‘okay, enjoy your fancy new duds, please get back to your boring human life!’”

“It would be awful cruel of us to get you so integrated and then dump you,” Wheeljack reminded. “Besides, I wanna see how my tech works,” he joked.

“Okay, sure, fine.” West fought off a smile, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms again. “What’s Jimmy doing?”

“Didn’t you ask him?”

West shook his head, lips twitching downwards. “Been meaning to,” he murmured. “Little afraid of the answer.”

“Jimmy’s staying on as a mechanic,” Bumblebee said. 

“S’pose that’s fair,” West mumbled, and thought of Verity. He got up, and kicked down the little ladder from the command console, climbing down it. “I’m gonna go water my plants,” he said, quietly. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be in my room.” Without pausing to wait for an affirmative, he left, walking down the halls of Omega Supreme’s ship. Eventually, he activated his suit and transformed the rollerblade shoes, breezing down the halls to his room much faster. When he got to the doorway he transformed back to root mode and walked in, flicking on the overhead lights. Verdant and lush, the whole room smelled of green. Grass carpeted the floor and a row of plants lined every wall but the one his bed was fixed to. It felt nice against his bare feet.

He started with the potato plants first, closing his eyes as he started to sink a finger into the dirt. He hesitated, fingers trembling once, and then tenderly pushed them in, feeling the soil in his fingers. He had a veritable victory garden in his room, with UV lamps and grass carpet. He liked to walk barefoot in his room, even if he didn’t like to think about why.

A flash, a vision, of being trapped in a gorge as Cons more unified than West had ever seen them bore down, a concerted barrage of red gunfire and screams. West’s lip twitched and his fingers squeezed the dirt before he forced his hand to relax, taking a shaky breath. He took his hand out and knelt to wipe it on the grass. Then, he moved on to his leafy green plants, making sure they were alright too, He spritzed them with cool mist, the water feeling like a gentler version of the rain that had poured down that day. When his eyes closed again, he saw Megatron and Starscream standing on the clifftop, a unified front. He saw Ratchet, Wheeljack… all of them, cut down by Megatron’s fusion cannon. His breathing felt tight. He just kept trying to care for the kale, hands shaking. He blinked, and Devastator was branded behind his eyelids, sickly chartreuse plating bright in the morning light as one step flattened an area the size of his foot -- a semi-truck cab. West gasped for breath, braced against the table, sweat beading up on his forehead as he remembered staring up, up, up, further than he ever had, to look straight into Devastator’s visor. His armor automatically whirred into animation, unfolding under his clothes to cover him head to toe, humming to life. He barely noticed his HUD activate, heavy panting breaths fogging up the visor momentarily before disappearing. He squeezed his eyes shut, gritting his teeth against the onslaught, but that just made his weapons come online, whining their charge.

***

_ He lay face-up in the mud, helmet retracted as he stared up the sheer cliff of Devastator’s front. Only two baleful pinpricks of red were visible in the shadow, and he could hear the Con squad laughing. Suddenly, he wished -- he wished Flux was there. As stupid as it was -- he was  _ **_literally_ ** _ wallowing in the mud in defeat -- at least she would’ve considered him a worthy opponent, not a bug to be squashed in celebration. Would she have even fought him? He couldn’t see out of his right eye -- smeared in rust-red, it ached, burned, stung… something. It painted a streak down to his throat, where something wet but temperature-less pooled next to his head and neck. He was getting mud in his hair. God, that would be horrible to get out. He’d have to resist the urge to shampoo twice a day three days in a row. _

_ “I -- I gotcha, kid,” Ratchet wheezed, hooking hands under his armpits and pulling him back, through the mud, closer to the Bots. “I gotcha… you’re alright…” _

_ West couldn’t respond, could only stare uncomprehendingly at the god among giants that stood before him. Of course -- he knew gestalt technology was in the making. And how was he more scared of -- of the  _ **_Brute Squad_ ** _ than he was of  _ **_Sixshot?_ ** _ But god, it felt like he couldn’t even move. A pretty pathetic Autobot  _ **_he_ ** _ made, huh. _

_ “You’re bleeding pretty bad,” Ratchet panted, voice fuzzy with static as he tried to soak up some of the red on West’s face with wet gauze -- rain poured down. “Let’s see if you’ve still --  _ **_krrzt_ ** _ \-- got that eye, huh kiddo?” he murmured, voice fritzing. The Cons howled with laughter, throwing rocks at him, where they pinged off his helm. He just smiled tenderly down at West, trying to distract him. It worked, at first -- all West could do was swallow, open-mouthed, and croak out something that was probably Ratchet’s name. _

_ *** _

_ “Yeah, kid, it’s me,” Ratchet murmured. His smile was so pained, and West knew it was because he didn’t want West to see what was about to kill him for sure. “It’s me. Just look at me, alright?” _

West took his hand away from his visor, expecting to see it muddied with rust-red. Instead, his glove gauntlet was clean, dry. He took in the lush green plants in front of him, nothing like the desiccated, yellow-brown canyon walls, and the soft, but prickly grass under his suit shoes. Heaving a shaky breath, he closed his eyes again and then abruptly forced them open to stay present with himself, right where he was. He was on Omega Supreme’s ship, headed back to Earth, with his  _ completely fine _ family of Autobots, minus fucking  _ Sunstreaker, _ the traitorous bastard. Devastator had been a year ago. He was nineteen, and the year was 2019, Earth years, give or take five days of a full stellar cycle.

_ “Just look at me, alright? Just look at me, kid. You’re alright, West. Just -- keep your eyes on me.” _

West growled through his teeth, gritting them so hard he thought they might crack. He resisted the sudden, overwhelming urge to sweep all of the plants in their pots off the table by turning around to his bare bed-wall and firing off one of his blasters at it, panting through his teeth. When his laser-revolver clicked as on its last chamber and needing to recharge, it gave him just a moment’s clarity to put it away. He looked down at his hands, still clad in armor, and worked on taking deep breaths, feeling like he was just a dry leaf in the wind -- shaking head to toe. Hesitantly, his weapons offlined and his armor slowly eked its way retracted, piece by piece, until it folded back into resting position. West took a long, deep breath, and then another, kneeling down onto the grass in his shorts and feeling his knees against the grassblades. Then he put his hands down onto it, and his forehead next, feeling the stalks poke against the tender new scar on the right side of his face, over his right eye and down to his throat. He briefly chuckled mirthlessly -- did that add to some kind of  _ rugged charm _ he had, or was that a dealbreaker for any man who wanted a pretty young twink? 

He rolled over onto his back, starfishing, trying to relax. He hoped it would feel like laying in his backyard when he was nine, cloudgazing. It was a bad idea -- he immediately rolled back over onto his stomach, sighing in relief. Too much like the canyon. He wished he had some fucking weed. He thought about Earth, again.

Yeah, maybe the reason he didn’t wanna go back was because he felt like his family would ditch him -- but really, all he could think about was fucking _Devastator._ And he _hated_ that -- he’d signed up for being an Autobot, or an honorary one, or whatever; why couldn’t he _keep pace?_ _Could_ he keep pace? Was this _part_ of keeping pace? He just closed his eyes, resting his cheek against the grass and grimacing when it was the right side of his face, abruptly shifting it so it was his left.

A knock on his door -- too small for one of the Bots. West just called for him to come in, and Jimmy stood in the doorway, hands shoved in his pockets.

“What, didn’t you get any sleep last night?” he joked, coming over to slav-squat next to West. “We’re almost to Earth. I’m gonna celebrate.”

“Good for you,” West grumbled into the grass, exhausted.

“You’re lookin’ kinda pale,” Jimmy said, tilting his head. “Something the matter?”

“No,” West insisted, resolutely. “Look, I -- I’m just not psyched to be headed back to a mudball.”

“Yeah, as if Cybertron was a party,” Jimmy remarked, sarcastically. “Best fun I’ve had in years. The Swarm was great. That whole bit with finding out who the mole was was a riot.”

“At least it wasn’t Earth,” West bemoaned into the grass, head moving as his jaw pushed off the floor with each syllable. “Earth  _ sucks!” _

“Aw, it’s not so bad,” Jimmy said, cheerfully, adjusting himself to sit by West. “There’s lots to love about it!”

West finally flipped over onto his back, too uncomfortable to stay on his stomach. His head felt like it was gonna explode, but when he flipped over the pressure started dissipating, finally. “Ugh,” he groaned, closing his eyes against the overhead. “Sure,” he grumbled. “If you like -- mosquitos, or… telemarketers, or… or… human allocishets.”

“Look, that last one is up for debate,” Jimmy laughed. “But the other two aren’t  _ so  _ bad. You  _ are  _ a human being, you know.”

“Don’t remind me,” West moaned, throwing a forearm over his eyes. “I already have to think about it. Besides -- there’s  _ nothing  _ on Earth we can’t get somewhere else.  _ Anywhere  _ else! It’s not like I have a blood grudge against organic planets, obviously, but --  _ Earth?” _

Jimmy got quiet. “It’s because of what --  _ who’s  _ on Earth, isn’t it.”

“Shut up,” West snapped harshly, snarling from under his forearm, still over his eyes. “Don’t bring up D --” His voice caught in his throat. “Don’t want to talk about him,” he managed to finish. “With any luck he’ll have rusted away and we can just skip on along to the next planet, and wave  _ bye-bye! _ to Earth forever. If I never see that fucking blue speck again it’ll be too soon.”

“Alright, alright.” Jimmy was quiet for a moment. “You’re taking the Devastator thing pretty hard. Out of all people, you --” he laughed, nervously. “I thought you’d handle it better than either of us -- Verity or I. She was close second, though.”

“Didn’t I  _ just  _ say  _ not  _ to bring Devastator up?” West snipped.

“West, sooner or later, we’re gonna get to Earth,” Jimmy said, quietly. “You can’t avoid him forever.”

“I can do it for a year,” West moaned, taking a shuddering breath. “God, I’m such a fucking coward.”

“No you’re not, man.” Jimmy patted his forearm. “No, you’re not.”

  
  


\----------------------------------------

  
  


Two day/night cycles later, the ship swooped into Earth’s atmosphere, charting a course for New York. And the second they’d seen the leveled city and the fighting, it was all hands on deck. West’s armor unfolded the second he saw Devastator on the screens, and he went to the loading bay, standing next to Ratchet and making sure his guns were ready.

“Kid, maybe you should --” Ratchet tried.

“I’m fine,” West cut it down, harshly. 

“But Devastator --”

West just cracked his neck, rolling his head around.  _ “Yeah,” _ he said, defiantly. “I saw him. So what? I’m dropping in with the  _ rest  _ of the Autobots.”

Then, the floor dropped out from under them, and all of a sudden West was in free fall, spread-eagle in the air. He readied his weapons, pointing down and the gaggle of Cons in the rubble of New York City, and opened fire as everyone else did. The whole world narrowed to a pinprick, as the familiar rush of headlong battle filled him. He joined up with Ratchet midair, braced on his shoulder for impact. Then he jumped off, charging right into the fray, life a blur around him. And when the call to retreat and make room for Omega Supreme came, he fell back with the rest,  _ savoring  _ the laughter of the Cons this time because he knew it wouldn’t last very long.

Indeed, as soon as Omega Supreme cracked Devastator across the face, the giant green monstrosity looked like a mayfly. They were the same size, and yet Omega towered over Devastator, a silent, solemn juggernaut. Cons scattered around them, and West watched them scurry around like rats. One caught his eye -- bright green plating, pink highlights. His mind’s eye twinkled and he remembered staring down the barrel of the bot’s gun, being made to walk the plank to the spacebridge that would drop them at Cybertron. He’d shoved the gun at West and laughed at his flinch, calling him a gnat.

West growled behind his visor, something low and feral. He charged up his blasters and jumped down from where he was perched on Ratchet’s shoulder, ignoring the medic’s cry. He was already taking off, rage boiling through him. They’d see who was a fucking gnat -- West had the ordnance to lay out a Cybertronian. After all, he was a warrior now -- the Autobot badge on his suit’s chest flashed in confirmation. He jumped up onto the bot’s foot and activated his mag-pulses on his hands, crawling up the Con’s side and landing on his shoulder as he shouted, waving his arms and trying to shake West off. West stood up on his shoulder and aimed both arm blasters at him.

“You should’ve  _ swatted me _ when you had the  _ chance,  _ Ossifier,” he said, coldly, and shot the Con in the head, blowing his brain up from the inside and leaping off, pushed by the explosion as firmly as if Clement had kicked him between the shoulderblades.

  
  


\----------------------------------------------

**_The Erstwhile Assemblance: 3 quadrants away, 12 hours previous._ **

  
  


_ “You want me to  _ **_what?”_ ** _ Flux shrieked, eyes boggling at her screen. _

_ “We need a cargo plane,” Megatron growled. “The humans plan to drop a ‘nuke’ on us. After we finish construction in this New York, I shall turn their own weapon against them.” _

_ “You --” Flux took several deep breaths, holding up a finger. “You can’t --” she started to laugh, feeling crazed, hysterical. She fought back the fit of giggles, scrubbing a hand down her face. “You can’t --  _ **_hehe_ ** _ \-- can’t --  _ **_ha ha ha_ ** _ \-- you can’t be --  _ **_heh!_ ** _ You can’t be  _ **_serious!”_ **

_ “Look at me. I’m  _ **_completely_ ** _ serious.” _

_ “You’ve  _ **_won,_ ** _ Megatron!” Flux shouted. “You’ve conquered this planet,  _ **_fine!_ ** _ Just move on to the next one! It’s what you always do!” _

_ “Major General, I gave you an  _ **_order._ ** _ Carry the nuke for us. Soundwave can bridge your ship into Earth’s orbit in time for you to get into position.” _

**_“No,”_ ** _ Flux snapped. “Find yourself another mule. I refuse to be a part of this.” And she hung up. _

  
  


\--------------------------------------------

  
  


“That was dangerous and reckless, kid!” Ratchet shouted, catching up with him, leaning down to check him for injuries or suit problems. “You could’ve -- gotten  _ killed!” _

“I’m fine, Ratchet,” West snapped, waving it aside. “I go  _ squish, _ but I’m not helpless.”

“That’s not what I’m --” Ratchet sighed, letting West climb to his shoulder again. “That’s not what I’m saying! I’m  _ saying  _ \-- you’re  _ losing your head  _ more and more lately. You’re  _ volatile, _ you’re  _ mercurial  _ \-- you  _ fly off the handle!” _ He shouted. Behind them, Prime and Megatron were tearing into each other, rending plating and lighting each other up in flashes of white and orange. “You’re going to get yourself killed!”

“I have to keep up with thirty foot war machines, and you’re faulting me for being aggressive?” West retorted, crossing his arms.

“You have _ the most annoying habit _ of magically hearing whatever you want to hear,” Ratchet growled, throwing up the arm that didn’t have West on its shoulder. “That’s  _ not  _ what I’m saying -- I’m saying you keep going  _ rogue! _ You keep just -- just going  _ postal, _ and you jump in without thinking! It’s happening more and more, lately!”

“Oh, like no Autobot’s  _ ever  _ done that before,” West said, tilting his head. Megatron was standing over Prime, but no doubt Prime was about to get up and the ripping and tearing and shooting would start all over again.

But, no -- instead, a flash of orange light came from above, at an angle, and blasted Megatron so hard he fell to the ground, seemingly unable to get up. Calamity ensued.

“Is he --?”

“Is Megatron dead?

“Megatron is dead, isn’t he?”

“Way to go, Prime!”

“He’s not getting up!”

“He always gets up!”

“But he’s not!”

**_“Megatron is dead!”_ **

  
  


\------------------------------------

  
  


After Starscream had collected Megatron, viciously spurning their attempts to leave Megatron for dead, they still had to worry about the nuke that was gonna get dropped on their heads -- that is, until Thundercracker approached them. 

“None of you can fly,” he said, “not in robot form.”

“Omega Supreme --” someone cut in.

“This needs something with finesse,” he scoffed. “Not the work of your claw-handed oaf.”

“You’re a Decepticon!” Ironhide shouted. “Why the hell would you help us?”

“There is no honor in this weapon,” the Seeker thundered.

“Brother,” Drift greeted, warmly. “I’ve glad you’ve made your choice. The way is --”

“Do not speak to me,” Thundercracker snarled, batting his hand away. “I am no traitor to my kind. These creatures were never worthy opponents. The Decepticons are forged through combat, not slaughter.” As he fired up his heel thrusters, he grimaced. “Everything we’ve done here brings dishonor to the Decepticon name.”

“I can think of a few other places, too,” West muttered under his breath. But Thundercracker couldn’t hear him -- he was already in the air, hugging the nuke and steering it up into space, until they weren’t even pinpricks in the sky. And then -- all of a sudden, a bright, red-orange bloom bled over the sky, lighting up the rubble below like one giant stage spotlight. With a little giggle, West supposed he could check seeing a nuke go off off of his bucket list. As the Autobots cheered, all West could think of was… what was he gonna do now? Would they help rebuild? Or would they leave, for planets unknown? He found himself thinking of Iowa.

“Prime!” Hound shouted, breathlessly, beaming. “Prime, I found your sniper!”

West didn’t bother to even really look at the man. He was handsome, in the heartbreaker way, West supposed. “Hey, Ratchet,” he said, turning away. “Now what are we gonna do, huh?”

“I dunno,” Ratchet said, watching Prime and the sniper guy talk with a keen eye. “I don’t like how that conversation looks like it’s panning out.”

“You think we should book it?” West asked, raising an eyebrow behind his visor.

“You always cut and run when it gets too hot,” Ratchet muttered. “You get one whiff of emotional conflict and you run for the hills.”

“I --” West opened his mouth, holding up a finger, and then huffed, crossing his arms and looking the way. “I just know when to leave a minefield.”

“Ha!” Ratchet laughed, holding his gut. “Yeah, sure, kid. Keep tellin’ yourself that -- I sure did!”

  
  


\----------------------------------------

**_Less than half a month after Victory: Rubble of New York City._ **

  
  


“This is West to base,” West murmured into his comms, patrolling around. “Looking for Bumblebee. Managed to get his signal. Can  _ anyone  _ read me?” Silence on the other end -- the hunters must’ve been jamming comms. He tried for inside the net. “Bumblebee, can you read me?”

Garbled static came through, with a few words in between -- West’s comms ID wasn’t able to pick up who it was, but he had his strong suspicions it was Bee.

“I thought I heard something over that rise!” Someone shouted, and West cursed, looking for somewhere to run. There wasn’t anywhere to hide -- nowhere good anyway. He just swore and scuffed over his mechsuit tracks, retracting his armor and kneeling down to throw some dust on his clothes.

“I liked this shirt,” he whined to himself. He got up, and did his best to look confused and lost, wandering around. The rubble was painful on his bare soles, but it’d probably sell the image. Didn’t make him feel any better about it, though. Ugh -- he deserved one  _ hell  _ of a pedicure after this and he’d barely had his toes in the “sand” for less than five seconds. He decided it was best to be proactive. “H-hello?” he called, making his voice waver. “Hello, is -- is anybody there?”

“Got someone over here!” Someone shouted, and a group of soldiers came over the rise of a dune. “Human straggler!” The leader shouted, jogging over to West.

“Oh, thank  _ god  _ you’re here!” West sobbed, putting on the waterworks. He staggered over and threw himself at the man’s feet, prostrating himself for the effect. “I thought I’d  _ never  _ see another human being  _ again!” _ He just… _ left out _ the part where he considered that a good thing. “Oh, thank you thank you  _ thank you! _ I’ve been wandering for  _ hours!” _

“That’s alright, young man, we’re here to help,” the man said, helping him up by the arm.  _ “We got ourselves a crier,” _ he mumbled over his shoulder at the group. “We can take you to a safezone. Just follow us.”

“Oh, thank you!” West cried. “Please, lead the way!”

His comms suite buzzed with static again, snippets of a voice making it through. He fell into step behind the group, but one of the soldiers insisted on caboosing. It made his exit strategy a little sticky, but -- what the hell, it wasn’t like he didn’t have Goo Gone in his arsenal. They made their way through pulverized rubble and dunes of ground concrete and rebar, a small, paltry little parade.

“What’s that metal on your back, son?” the soldier behind him asked, suspiciously.

“Oh,” West said, brightly. “You know -- um, body modifications? I’m kinda into that subculture. Also, my spine had some problems, so I decided to do a twofer. I can show you if you like!”

“Er --” he tried not to make a face. “No thanks. Good for you, though.”

West just beamed effusively and turned back around, letting the smile drop like a stone as soon as he wasn’t facing anyone. The sooner he got away from these creeps, the better. They were making his skin crawl. His comms suite lit up with buzzing again, a few more snippets of voice getting through.

“Any --  _ krsszzt  _ \-- there? Is --  _ krzzt  _ \-- any --  _ kzt  _ \-- one there? It’s --  _ kszzrt  _ \-- calling to command. Pl --  _ ksst  _ \-- se come get me, I’m --  _ kzzrrt  _ \-- stranded! Humans --  _ kzzt  _ \-- closing --  _ kzzt!” _

West hummed. That was definitely not Bumblebee’s voice, but like hell if he’d leave a Cybertronian stranded out here being hunted for sport. He activated his comms. “So,” he said, in the Small Talk tone of voice, “Where are we, right now?”

“Is --  _ krzzt  _ \-- is someone there? I’m --  _ kzzt  _ \-- I’m here! In an old --  _ kzzt  _ \-- building, last one standing, Se --  _ ksszzzt  _ \-- tor 4!”

“We are smack dab in the middle of Sector 4,” the commander said. “We need to pass by a building on our way, so you’ll need to step to it when we do. It’s leaning rather precariously.”

“Why can’t we go around?” West asked, innocently.

“Can’t --  _ kzzt  _ \-- move! Pinned down! Humans use --  _ kzzt  _ \-- path as primary road!”

“Do you think we should, y’know,” West said, looking around “nervously.” He could see the building looming to their right. “Make a break for it? Around the other side, maybe?”

“Too --  _ kzzrt  _ \-- visible. Base nearby. I’ll --  _ kzzt  _ \-- have to go the other way!”

“No way,” The commander said. “As long as we don’t do anything crazy like detonate a bomb, the building’s fine. Just makes us nervous.”

“Gotcha,” West said, sweetly. The building’s shadow loomed overhead. An engine revved, and a little motorcycle sped out of a space under the concrete and rebar shell, dust flying in its wake.

“Got a live one!” the commander shouted, and West immediately engaged his armor, taking out the guy behind him with a metal elbow to the face. The motorcycle transformed and began trying to fight back, firing on the squad. The soldiers in front of West immediately caught on to his subterfuge, some in the back turning to fire on him.  _ “Look alive! It’s one of them!” _ West took them down in quick succession with the help of his ally, and then they trained their guns on each other, waiting, watching. They assessed each others’ badges -- one Bot, one Con.

“Friendly if you are,” West said in Decepticon Neocybex, from behind his visor. “Where do you need to go?”

“I want to get  _ out  _ of this city,” the mech said, hands wringing. “I never wanted  _ this!” _

“I might have a place you can go,” West said. “Both of us lower our guns in three?”

“Fine.”

“Three… two… one!”

Neither of them lowered their guns.

“Okay, so it’s not going to work if we both keep our guns up,” West said, and lowered his gun first. He transformed it away, putting his palms up. “I’m here to help, really. What’s your name?”

“Y-yield,” they said, staring suspiciously at him before lowering their own gun. “Why would you help me?”

“Because mecha being hunted for sport is disgusting,” West said. “Whatever you did, you don’t deserve this. Nobody does. My name is West, Yield.” He retracted his armor, keeping his palms up, and Yield jumped.

“A human?” Yield shouted, cringing away. “Get away from me!”

“I’m still here to help, Yield,” West said, keeping his voice calm, still speaking Neocybex. “My name is West of Statsin. Yes, I work with Team Prime, and yes, I’m a human being. However, what I said stands. Mecha being hunted for sport is disgraceful. Do we have an agreement?”

“... fine.” Yield put his gun away, looking around nervously. One of the soldiers stirred at West’s feet, mumbling. West kicked him and he shut up. “How are you gonna get me outta here?”

“I’m going to need your altmode,” West said, approaching slowly. “If you don’t mind me riding you, that is.”

_ “No way!” _

“If that’s your final decision, I respect that,” West said gravely, keeping his palms up. “But think about how much easier it’s going to be smuggling you out of here as a regular motorcycle than it is a  _ giant robot.” _

Yield chewed on his lower lip, worrying it. He mumbled and hemmed and hawwed. Finally, he transformed, kickstand flicking out to prop himself up. “Get on,” he grumbled. “But -- don’t get me dirty!”

“You’ll be fine,” West laughed, patting the seat before swinging himself onto it. “Do you mind if I grab your handlebars? I need to anchor myself.”

Yield’s engine grumbled. “Fine, I suppose.”

“Thank you.” West grabbed on, getting situated. He activated only his helm and visor, to look like he was wearing a biker’s helmet from further away. “Alright, you’ll do the driving, Yield. I can tell us where to go.”

“Anything to get out of here.” Yield’s engine roared. “Hey, um -- who were you comming for, originally? It couldn’t have been me.”

“You were a serendipity,” West admitted. “I was -- originally looking for my friend, Bumblebee.”

“Oh -- I saw him, a while back. He was making a break for it. He looked okay, all things considered.”

“... thanks, Yield.”

“Suppose it’s the least I could do,” the motorcycle mumbled. “You gettin’ me out an’ everything.”

“Just doing my job,” West responded. “Left here, then a right.”

  
  
  



	6. American Idiot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The war is over. But that doesn't mean the fighting has stopped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings:
> 
> \- mention of non-nicotine vaping from a rig. look for the first set of "***" to know when it starts and ends.  
> \- someone being deadnamed but the person is corrected. Look for the "***" to know when it starts and ends.

“Aright, Yield.” West adjusted his balance, as the motorcycle pulled over, sand kicking up. “You’re free and clear. Do you have somewhere to go?”

“Not really.” Yield’s handlebars shrugged. “My trine got -- scrapped.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” West murmured. “Til all are one.”

“Til all are one,” Yield repeated, rotely.

“No friends to join up with?”

Yield’s engine purred. “Ever since we won -- before we lost again -- the welds between us have been breaking down. It’s every Con for himself these days.”

“Hey --” West leaned down. “You could always come back with me. Autobot base has a place for you.”

“No way! I’m  _ not  _ going to be a prisoner.”

“War’s over, remember?” West patted the shoulder over the front wheel, under the handlebars. “There’s more Cons there. You’re not the  _ only  _ one I’ve helped get outta that city.”

Yield thought on it, silent.  _ “You’re _ in charge over there?”

“Not of the Autobots, no.” West shook his head. “But I kinda -- run between, shall we say? Between the Bots and the Cons at the base. Wasn’t easy at first, but you’d be surprised how much respect an organic can command if he looks like he knows what he’s doing. I think Prime’s afraid to squish me if we argue too hard.” West cackled lightly, and felt Yield relaxing under him. “What do you say, Yield? You’re welcome to come, but free to go.”

“Do you have Energon there?”

“It’s not much, but we have it,” West answered, honestly. “And we could always do with more scouts.”

Yield was silent save for the purr of his engine. “And I’m free to leave.”

“Anytime.”

Yield thought about it. “... fine. I trust you; not the others.”

“That’s fine.” West patted his shoulder again. “Alright, then I can tell us where to drive from here. I think you and I are gonna be a  _ great  _ team, Yield.”

  
  


\---------------------------------------------

  
  


“Sir,” one of the soldiers behind Spike said, “Did you -- did you hear about the guys from Sector 4, a few weeks ago? They were doing cleanup duty too, they got attacked by some -- some  _ new  _ kinda bot.”

_ “New?” _ Spike scoffed, scanning the area as they walked. They’d gotten reports of some old car or something hiding out in an abandoned building, and they were on the way to put it down. “C’mon. You know the guys in Sector 4 would call a  _ guppy _ a  _ tuna. _ It’s probably just one they’ve never seen before.”

“No, no, it disguised itself as a human,” the guy said.

“They can  _ all  _ do that!”

“No, like a  _ real  _ human!” the soldier insisted. “Like, flesh and blood! It tried to trick them, lure them into a trap with a motorcycle or something. They got  _ decimated!” _

“So  _ that’s  _ why Joe was sporting a nice, big broken nose and two black eyes,” Spike chuckled, admittedly a little smug. “How big did they say it was?”

“Not as big as the other ones. But it had some kind of retractable suit, and it was like seven feet tall. Incapacitated everyone in like two seconds. They said it was unstoppable!”

“So what, are you scared of the  _ bogeyman?” _ Spike teased, looking over his shoulder. “Come on, Phil, that’s ridiculous. This is just a routine seek and destroy.” They came up on the abandoned building, flanked by piles of rubble on either side. The half-transformed monster lay in a pile in the building, vents blowing ragged air that stirred up dust clouds. An engine revved, and the dust flared a little more. Spike looked over his shoulder. “Look, there’s our target. There’s not gonna be any  _ motorcycle-riding robot Valkyries _ shrieking down from the sky, got it?”

An engine roared from behind the rubble and a motorcycle with a rider clad in armor plating (and oddly enough, clothing) soared over the ridge, slamming down with a squeal of tires as it fishtailed a line in the sand between the soldiers and the injured vehicle. The rider jumped off as the motorcycle transformed, ending up with guns pointed at the team. The rider shouted something over its shoulder at the creature laying down cover fire, kneeling to inspect the injured vehicle. Then it put two fingers to its audial and said something, firmly, probably calling for backup.

“Move it, move it!” Spike thundered, waving them along. “Flank ‘em! I want three deactivations today!”

One of the shots from the blaster in the big one’s hands -- his purple badge glinted in the light -- took out Murphy, blowing her back to where she lay, stunned but unhurt, on the concrete. Spike saw Wyatt try and flank around the smaller rider’s right and the pipsqueak transformed a gun out of his right arm and shot, blowing Wyatt away too. A siren sounded in the distance, getting closer and closer.

Spike was the only one left standing, but he felt something hit him in the chest like a cold fist and flew backwards, landing face-up on the sidewalk. He panted, dizzy and confused, and managed to roll over, groaning, onto his side. He curled to watch, willing his body to get back into action -- but he was as useless as putty. An ambulance jumped the ramp of rubble the same way the motorcycle had and skidded to a stop, throwing his back doors open. The motorcycle helped load the injured vehicle in, and then the ambulance honked, saying something to the rider. 

It jogged over, and moved Murphy to the side, dragging her by the armpits. Spike croaked, feeling his coordination come back, bit by bit. He kept laying there, faking it, in the hopes that by the time this rider got to him he’d be able to get the jump on it. The rider walked over to him, finally, and leaned down, grunting as it got a grip under Spike’s armpits. It groaned with exertion as it straightened, starting to drag Spike out of the ambulance’s path. 

Spike sucked in a breath through his nose and tried to elbow the thing’s visor, managing to crack it. It cried out, flinging its head back and then recovered, tightening its grip under his armpits so he couldn’t use his arms with any measure of efficiency.

“Fuckin’ GI Joes,” it muttered in its mechanical voice, dragging Spike across the alleyway and propping him against the wall. “Ouch.” It straightened up completely, waving his arm in a circle over his head and whistling. “Ratch, you’re clear!”

The ambulance flicked on sirens and screamed out of the alley, down the road. The motorcycle was close behind, screeching to a halt for the rider to get on. Then they bolted, flanking the ambulance almost like an escort.

Spike forced his uncoordinated arms to work. “Dispatch,” he growled into his radio, panting. “Code red! I got a rogue motorcycle, human-shaped rider, and an ambulance carrying the target! They’re making a break for it -- intercept them!” Static fuzzed from his radio and he growled, shaking it.  _ “Dispatch?!” _

  
  


\-------------------------------------------------

  
  


“Ho-ho- _ hoo-ooly shit,” _ West laughed, retracting his suit as Yield pulled to a halt outside the base. “That was  _ awesome, _ Yield.”

“It  _ did  _ feel good,” Yield sniffed. “Dunno how I feel about helping Autobots, though.”

“War’s over,” West said, getting off, and walking next to the bike as they both went back into the base, doors closing behind them. West waved and nodded to people who greeted him, thanking or congratulating him on the successful recovery mission. “Hey -- Milipedus told me you two were due for a game of Go before you left. I think he’s waiting on you.”

Yield transformed, giving a thumbs up. “Thanks, kid.”

West just winked, clicked his teeth, and flashed fingerguns. “Thank  _ you. _ Go nuts. Flirt for me.” He turned and they parted ways, West headed to see Ratchet and how the new addition was doing. “Hey, Ratch, how’s he doin’?”

“He’s not great, but he’ll pull through,” the medic said absently, deep in concentration. “Optimus wants to speak with you.”

“No doubt to congratulate me on another  _ splendid  _ rescue mission,” West peacocked, smugly. “Where is he?”

“Should be in his office,” Ratchet mumbled, jerking his head. “Go’n. Get.”

West didn’t argue -- he knew better when Ratchet was like That. Instead, he just activated his rollerblades, leaving the rest of the armor off, and skated down the halls all the way to Prime’s “office.” Really, it was just his “I Need To Think” space. West used His Keypad (they’d had to put small ones on all the doors) and his section of the door slid away, letting him through. “Optimus,” he asked, as Prime was staring out the tinted window, in his Deep In Thought pose. Oh, boy. Looked way serious. “What’s up? Ratchet said you wanted to see me.” He deactivated the rollerblades and just let his bare feet stand on the metal. The metal was cold on them.

“Yes.” Optimus turned his head, and then turned around fully, walking over to get down on one knee. “You’ve done very well in your recent missions.”

West beamed, proudly, smugly. “Thank you! I --”

“However,” Optimus said, holding up a finger, “We need to talk about the amount of Decepticons in this base. I worry that this isn’t sustainable.”

“Optimus, it’s  _ five,” _ West said, one eyebrow going up. “Five Cons to about twenty Autobots, and you’re already getting antsy? None of them have caused any problems -- and several help me on missions.”

“Need I remind you what five Cons can become,” Optimus said, gravely, eyes flicking to the long cut scar over West’s eye and throat.

“First of all,” West said, temper boiling as he poked a finger in Prime’s face,  _ “Fuck you  _ for bringing up Devastator. Secondly, what are you going to do? Kick ‘em out? They’ve done nothing but help.”

“I know you and Yield are close… however, I can’t help but feel this is unwise,” Optimus said, rumbling. “I am not the only one getting nervous.”

West softened. “Look,” he said, “You trusted me to be the go-between, now  _ let me _ be the go-between. I haven’t heard a whisper of serious malcontent. They’re staying -- that’s final. Everyone needs all the help they can get, what with the toy plastic soldiers out there.” West jerked his head towards NYC.

Optimus sighed, dipping his head. “By your judgement,” he said, agreeing. “And -- West?”

“Mhm?”

“Ratchet said your visor was damaged. Go see Wheeljack to get it fixed.”

“Gotcha.” West gave him a thumbs up and walked out, heading to the lab as soon as he was out in the hall. He skated in, retracting his wheels into a jog before finally stopping.  _ “Jackie!”  _ he called, beaming. “Whatcha workin’ on?”

“Oh, nothing much,” Wheeljack said, “something with a kick. What can I do ya for?”

“My visor got cracked,” West said, extending his armor. His visor slid over his face, the crack in his screen flickering in his HUD. “See? I got elbowed by an absolute  _ action figure _ of a man.”

“Well, come on, I’ll fix it.” Wheeljack patted the table and cleared a spot, so West activated his mag-pulses and scurried up and under it, hauling himself over the lip and topside. Situated, he deactivated his magnets and sat with his legs hanging off, swinging idly. Wheeljack leaned in close, eyeing the visor. “Uh huh. Well, luckily for you, I’ve been working on a time un-doer.”

“A… time-undoer,” West said, one brow going up behind the visor. “What next, a space unzipper?”

“You wound me, little man,” Wheeljack joked, getting an absolutely teeny (for him) penlight and washing it over West’s suit. It hummed so hard it rattled his teeth, and West watched the crack disappear. His HUD clock fritzed until the beam was gone, and then returned to normal. “Space unzipper is two projects away. Right now, this thing only works on the small scale, but I’m hesitant to scale it up any further for fear it might cause… incidents.”

“Incidents,” West said, smirking. His armor retracted, compacting itself back into his spinal strut. “Is that what they’re calling them these days?”

  
  


\------------------------------------------------

  
  


**_Earth: 2 Years After the War and Subsequent Rebuilding._ **

  
***

West stood on the street corner, leaned against a wooden power pole, vaping a rig. He had his hair pulled up in a cap and a bulky coat on to hide his armor strut. The energy plant across the street was quiet for now, but they’d had good intel that it was gonna get hit, and soon. And these days, it was getting riskier and riskier to be out in the open if you were a person of the metal persuasion. Team Prime was sending West more and more out on recon and high-visibility missions.

He puffed out cotton-candy flavored vapor, nodding to a group of people as they passed, smiling from under the brim of his hat. One of them looked at the scar on his face, from where they could see it stretching from under his eye down to his throat, and grimaced, looking away quickly. West’s mood soured a little, so he just sucked down some more vapor, puffing little clouds to watch them wisp away. He exhaled the rest through his nose, cheering himself up a little. The sky was bright blue today, and West leaned his head back, taking it in. As much as he hadn’t wanted to come back, he couldn’t deny that… some things about Earth were pretty okay. 

***

The intel that had him camping out here was good. The plant shook with a  **_BOOM_ ** and a dark figure emerged from the smoke and red-hot glow, holding sparking cables. West squinted to identify shape, and as they emerged from the smoke, color and badge. He put two fingers to his comms. “West of Statsin, reporting,” he murmured. “Breakdown’s hit the plant.”

“Prowl’s gonna be on the scene in a second,” Jazz said, as people ran by West in their haste to get away. West just moved against the crowd to sit on a bench a little closer, putting his elbows on his knees and keeping his face below the brim of his hat. “He’s with the local authorities.”

“Still can’t believe he signed up to get ridden around,” West laughed to himself, looking over as Breakdown howled about Energon and thrashed. “Breakdown’s getting lively. Should I go in?”

“No. Wait for Prowl and Streetwise.”

“Alright, but don’t say I didn’t warn ya.” West said, tilting his head. “ETA on Prowl and company?”

“They’re on their way now. Two minutes out.”

West watched people flee by him, their feet a muddled stampede on the concrete. They seemed foreign, alien, a different species to him. He wondered if they had always felt that way, or if it had just gotten more severe. Breakdown wasn’t doing much damage -- just having a tantrum, really -- but still, he was relieved to see a herd of cop cars pull up because he knew Prowl was one of them… even if he wasn’t happy to see the pigs. His moment of relief was short lived when a small jet flew overhead, dropping men in crash suits like carpet bombs. “Prowl,” he said into comms, “you seeing this?”

“Of course I’m seeing this,” he responded. “Looks like the humans have this under control. They’ve got three suits deployed, which seems like overkill.”

“For a hungry Breakdown?” West nodded. “Definitely overkill.” Breakdown got hit with some kind of charge plug to the chest and howled, body bending backwards and then forwards, trembling with exertion as he folded into his altmode and lay, pacified.

“Less than twenty seconds,” Prowl said. “You can’t deny that they’re getting better at this.” He paused for a moment, and West could  _ hear  _ his engine rev from where he was parked catty-corner. “Wait -- those particle cannons are their lethal countermeasures! They’re going to kill him!”

“Prowl, no!” Jazz said, over comms. “You can’t break cover!”

“Decepticon or no,” Prowl said, “they can’t just start  _ executing  _ us!”

“And what do you think they’re gonna do to _ you?”  _ West shouted into his comm, but Prowl was already transforming. West watched as he got struck with the same inhibitor technology, and folded into his altmode, docile as a lamb. “Prowl…” he whispered, as one of the men -- looked like Spike Witwicky -- climbed out of the crash suits and talked to the pigs, and then went over to Breakdown. West watched him get in. Horrified, the 21-year-old watched as the guy revved the engine and took off. “West of Statsin, reporting,” he said, turning away to the side as Spike sped by him down the road. “Prowl’s down. Breakdown is -- a trophy car now.”

“Streewise reporting in as well,” another one of the cop cars commed in. “Kid’s right. We got a situation.”

West activated his armor with his rollerblades, and hopped onto the sidewalk, making a beeline for base. By the time he’d gotten there, everyone was in line for Wheeljack’s lab, leaving with the new anti-inhibitors he’d finished developing. West fell in line, moving up steadily as people moved in front of him. Optimus and Rodimus were arguing -- again. 

“Oh, not you, kid,” Wheeljack said, after almost attaching one by instinct. He pulled back and moved West aside to work on the person behind him. “Don’t think they’d work on you.”

“Doesn’t this have a little transformation cog?” West asked, one eyebrow going up.

“Yeah, but --” Wheeljack shrugged. “You’re human. Doubt it’ll work on you.”

“Nothing more we can do?” Rodimus shouted, poking Optimus in the chest. “Prime, they’re chiseling away at us! How many have we lost since the end of the war?”

West thought of Yield. He and the motorcycle had been separated a year ago, and now Yield was probably someone’s Harley Davidson showboat, fitted with an inhibitor. West agreed with Rodimus, but he didn’t dare voice it -- it hadn’t gone so well for him when he did. The other Cons had already been rounded up, and as good a job as he thought he’d been doing going-between the Bots and the Cons, he hadn’t been able to scrounge up a scrap of sympathy for anyone to accompany him on a rescue mission.

“We have to stay hidden,” Optimus said. “We have to be smarter and hide.”

“Hide -- I can’t understand why we haven’t left yet!” Rodimus shouted. “The war ended two years ago!”

“We can’t leave until we know the humans are safe from attack,” Optimus said.   
  


“We’re the ones being attacked!”

“As long as Megatron can come back, we need to stay and protect the humans.”

_ “Megatron is dead!”  _ Rodimus bellowed,  _ “Megatron’s not coming back!” _

West just closed his eyes, leaned against the wall as Optimus and Rodimus argued it out, eventually coming to the agreement that Rodimus would lead a party to get Prowl back. West ignored the twinge of bitterness. When Optimus started assigning comrades to go with Rodimus, West raised his hand to join in.

“And West,” Optimus acknowledged. Then he turned back to Prowl. “Go. Free Prowl. Get what information you can. But  _ under no circumstances _ fire on a human being.”

“Yeah, sure.” Rodimus stormed out, stomping by West.

“Ironhide, I want you going with him,” Optimus said.

“Yeah, I won’t let anything happen to the kid,” Ironhide said, winking and giving a thumbs up.

  
  


\-------------------------------------------

**_Skywatch Holding Cells: Dusk._ **

  
  


West watched from the front as Bumblebee lasered through the fence, cutting a single slow line that melted the chain links.

“Alright,” Rodimus whispered. “Bee and the kid go first to scout. Then Ironhide and Mirage on me, and Mirage can disrupt any electronic surveillance. We can go right in the front door.”

“Are you stupid?” West hissed, at the same time Ironhide tried to butt in.

“This is my operation,” Rodimus defended. “I’m glad to have you along, but I’m in charge here. Now, West, Bee -- go in.”

West grumbled about it, but began scaling down the soft cliffside, turning around so he could just slide sideways down. It sent a cascade of pebbles and dust. Bee was down next, and West just hopped in his driver’s seat so they could get closer. “Stop here,” West hissed, retracting his armor. “I can go check it out on foot first.” He got out, bare feet against the dirt, and ran forwards until they were slapping against concrete. He hid on the side of a building, hearing voices to the center of the complex. He peeked around, his t-shirt tied up at the waist and his shorts stopping just under his hips. He was cold without his armor, but he ignored it. It was too suspicious, too noticeable. Small groups of soldiers clustered walking to here or there, guarded buildings, and manned machinery. West activated his comms, hands pressed to the corrugated metal of the building behind him. “Central forum filled with soldiers,” he murmured. “Do we know the specs on this place?”

“The building you’re against now is one of the holding cells,” Bumblebee responded, having backed off to a safe distance. “There should be a back entrance door rather than the garage door. Requires a keypad to get in, but you can disrupt the circuit with a knife or blade and jimmy the lock.”

“Got it.” West scooted back away from the bay doors and towards the human maintenance door, ignoring the keypad for favor of jimmying the lock. He activated his gauntlets and shoulderplates to get at the blade stored in one of the wrists, shoving it into the gap in the door and wriggling it. The keypad beeped green and the door swung open, revealing row upon row of motorcycles and three-wheelers. “Prowl’s not in here,” West said, lingering in the doorway as his eyes scanned. He hesitated to leave, glancing out of the doorway back towards the bay doors. “But -- do you think Yield is?”

“Dunno, kid,” Bumblebee said. “We haven’t seen any intel on him out and about. Focus, kid, find Prowl.”

Gritting his teeth, West shut the door, and moved around back, to the next one. This was monster trucks and larger equipment. He moved on to the last one. A quick shank to the lock and the door popped open, like clockwork. West peeked inside. Prowl was there, with the crash suits that had helped bring him in, no doubt. West’s armor activated without thinking as his hair stood up on the back of his neck, and he tried to will it away. The plating trembled but wouldn’t budge, mirroring the bad feeling in his gut. He just -- he didn’t like something about this. “Bee, this feels wrong,” he said. “I found him, but --”

“You found him?”

“Yeah, he’s in the third one. But, Bee --”

“If all goes well, we can get Yield too,” Bee tried to soothe. He radioed to the others that Prowl was in the third warehouse and West saw movement at the fence’s horizon where they’d cut the thing open. A shadow fell in front of him, wavering in the ridged metal of the warehouse.

A gun powered up behind his head. “Don’t move,” someone growled, “you heaping hunk of scrap metal.”

West didn’t move, heartbeat quickening. “Bee,” he tried to murmur into comms. “Bee! I’m blown, get outta here!”

“Sorry, kid -- Rodimus is being -- _Rodimus!_ **_Slow down!”_**

“Bee I’m blown!” West hissed, and got bumped with the gun.

“Yeah,” The soldier behind him radioed in. “I got one of the fuckers right here. Probably the one that cut all the doors.” He bumped West’s head with the gun again and West made his move, reaching behind himself to grab the muzzle and twist himself around, tucking the barrel under his armpit so the gun fired harmlessly into the ground behind him. With one, two, three punches to the guy’s nose, he was gushing blood and laid out on the ground, so West took his rifle and turned to book it -- only to to be faced by a whole squad, all aiming guns at him. West promptly dropped the rifle and put his hands up. 

“Bee,” he growled, hearing engines rev and soldiers shout into commotion behind him. “I told you I was blown!”

“Well, it’s too late now!” Rodimus answered.

One of the soldiers lifted a gun and West took a step back. “Wait --” he started to say.

They fired some kind of canister at him, and he realized belatedly that it was one of the inhibitors. It hit him squarely in the badge, gripping him with fingers of cold fire and ripping a scream from him as he folded backwards, body trying to transform back into his spinal strut with his armor. He fell backwards, twitching on the concrete, armor unresponsive in its dormant position as he lay in the fetal position, breathing ragged. He couldn’t get control of his muscles and his spinal strut hurt like agony. He tried to move, to crawl away, but all he could do was flop and twitch, scraping his skin against the rough concrete. He wheezed, trying to find the words to speak, but they were all pudding in his mouth, congealed alphabet soup.

“Well, well, well, lookee here boys,” one of them said, bootsteps approaching on the concrete as Rodimus crashed through the garage doors into the warehouse, engine revving from behind the corrugated wall. West just watched his fingers twitch and jump, entire body rigid except for the jerking. Was he having a seizure? Wouldn’t that be funny. He saw the toes of the soldier’s boots and wanted to spit on them, but his jaw was locked up. “It’s that new Secret Cybertronian that took out them boys in Sector 4 and got the drop on Major Witwicky!”

The guy grabbed West by the hair and pulled him up, ignoring West’s scream of pain. It pulled on his hair, but it also jostled his back, which burned like molten lava with each movement. West panted through his clenched teeth,  _ feeling  _ how wild his eyes had to have been. He tried to grab at the man’s fist to pull himself up, relieve the sting on his scalp.

“Kid, what’s your ETA?” Bumblebee asked, in his ear. “We’re  _ hot, _ we gotta get outta here!  _ West!  _ We’re hot, this whole  _ base  _ is hot! It was a  _ trap!” _

“I --” West managed, trembling with the exertion just to move his jaw, “Caught,” he managed, in Neocybex. “Got me. Can’t move.”

**_“What?”_ ** Bee shrieked, and West heard the screech of tires in the distance. “I’m coming back for you!”

“No!” West shouted, making the soldiers laugh, thinking he was yelling at them. He ignored them. “Go ‘way!” As his body finally stopped being so rigidly stiff, they set him down on the ground and manhandled his hands behind his back, one person trying to pull the metal out of his back to disarm him. West screamed in agony and they backed off, but he was still taken further into the complex and chained up in manacles to the floor, forced into a kneeling position with an inhibitor collar on. He just breathed in and out, in and out, in the dark, even as he tried to process the gray floor in front of him -- smooth concrete as opposed to the rough stuff outside. He wasn’t sure when, but as he dipped lower and lower, his head eventually hit concrete and he rested there, just closing his eyes for a moment.

  
  


\--------------------------------------------------

  
  
  


He got woken up the next morning by the bay door sliding open, revealing a couple of soldiers and someone Important looking. West squinted, still in low-grade pain that radiated out from his back in pulses. His posture overnight hadn’t helped. As the guy got closer, pulling up a chair, West’s armor tried to extend for him. It just made him convulse, grimacing. 

***

“Ooh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the man said, sitting down and flipping open a file folder. “Jennifer McLambert, aka  _ West  _ McLambert, aka West of Statsin… aka, the ‘Secret Cybertronian.’ You got a lot of aliases, Jenny. You’ve been giving us all this trouble -- imagine how we felt when we found you were just a pint-sized kid in a suit, just as human as myself and my men. Think we felt like a bunch of shavetail louies?”

“It’s West,” West panted, raggedly.  _ “Not _ Jennifer.” He  _ really  _ needed to get that changed.

***

The guy shrugged, nodding. “Alright. Well, West, it says here you’ve had run-ins with the law before. Minor cannabis offenses, an assault charge here or there…” He whistled, eyebrows flying up. “Missing person since…  _ December 29, 2015. _ Resurfaced on some cameras here or there throughout 2016, 2017… you manage to end up in Arizona, after which you just --  _ vomf! _ Disappear.” The guy leaned back in his chair after mimicking a poof with his arms. “Oh -- sorry, where are my manners? Major Spike Witwicky. Anyways, you’re well and truly gone for a bit, like you dropped off the face of the earth. And all of a sudden, after the leveling of New York City, you’re back, with the bots.” He flipped around the folder to reveal grainy satellite footage of West blowing Ossifier’s head off -- the kid smirked raggedly, in spite of himself. That had felt damn good. “Yeah, and you’ve got this fancy tech. You know -- that’s the problem with you kids these days, I feel like. Always with your electronics, never going outside. Spike shook his head. “My dad -- he taught me how to fish, how to hunt, how to live in the woods.”

“Bully for you,” West deadpanned, coughing. “What do you want?”

“Y’see,” Spike said, leaning forwards, and West squinted, almost recognizing him. His face was so familiar! Who was he? It irritated him. “I’m currently being stonewalled by a truck with self-flagellation issues.”

West laughed out loud, raising his eyebrows. “I know six. You’re going to have to be more specific.”

“Well, don’t you lead a charmed life, walking among titans,” Spike said. “Not all of us can be so lucky. I have Optimus --”

_ “HA!” _ West cackled, leaning his head back. “Yeah,  _ right!” _ He broke into a fit of giggles, back hurting but he just ignored it. It pulsed in waves through his nerves all the way down to his fingertips. “Yeah, sure. Megatron can’t take him out, but you got him just fine. Alright.” Spike didn’t look so amused. He got up, closing the folder. West saw him frown, rub the back of his head, and then it hit him in a burst of inspiration. “I know you!” he shouted. “Spike Witwicky, whatever, I knew that -- but yeah, you were that little GI Joe fucker, that elbowed me in the face and cracked my screen! Yeah. You were trying to kill an incapacitated person.” West smiled a “fuck off and die” smile. “Wow, yeah. Real good stuff.”

Spike didn’t say anything -- just turned around and walked out, leaving West in the dark again. It felt like days later when Spike came to get him, keeping his hands cuffed behind his back. His legs felt wobbly and uncooperative, and he leaned into it, fighting against Spike’s attempts to drag him wherever he wanted to take him. Outside, he saw Beachcomber, Hound, and Tracks sitting in altmodes, outside the bay doors of another warehouse.

“Beach,” West mumbled to himself, eyes widening. “Tracks -- Hound!”

“They can’t hear ya, kid,” Spike said, and opened the bay doors. West turned back around, ready to fight off being dragged somewhere, until he heard Spike speak. “Okay, Prime,” he said, and West turned to look, jaw dropping at the sight of Optimus in a cage of energon bars, looking defeated. “You obviously don’t need my help. But I just brought in three of your people, plus, uh…” he glanced at West. “Your  _ mascot. _ And I’m guessing you’ll want to help  _ them.” _

_ “... Optimus?” _ West shrieked, in shock.


	7. Tiny Dancer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After breaking out of Skywatch, West and Yield make their way to Omega Supreme to deal with Menasor. West is offered a new job. Later, he and Yield have a quiet night to themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings: none that i can think of!

Two days later, West woke up and his back didn’t hurt. Or at least, it didn’t hurt to move -- with that aching, sharp pain. He flexed his shoulders, rolling them around, and tried to activate his armor. He could feel it catch, but it rolled out over him, hesitantly armoring him off. His HUD flickered to life, too. His suit’s integrity was compromised, but it was soundly in the “Good Enough” range. He pulled on his manacles where they were chained to the floor, groaning, but they didn’t so much as budge. He tried to transform one of his guns out, but it pinged as powered down until repairs. The door started to open, and he quickly retracted it all, doing his best to look like a very pathetic, very normal human boy.

Spike was in, with two bags of fast food. West’s stomach growled as he watched Spike sit down in front of him and start eating a burger.

“I know what you’re doing,” West said, eyeing him. “Did you forget I’ve dealt with the pigs before?”

“Kid, I’m just having lunch,” Spike laughed, and then “glanced” down at the extra bag. “Oh, yeah! I got some extra. Want some?”

West didn’t answer.

“Going once… going twice…”

_ “Yes,” _ West burst out, unable to resist. They’d given him water, but barely any food since he’d seen Optimus. “Yes, I want some.”

“Hmm.” Spike frowned, taking another bite, leaning back in his seat. “Shame. Lunch is for talkers.”

“Get fucked,” West spat. “Hope you choke on an onion.” He launched into a series of Neocybex curses for good measure. When Spike stood up, West flinched back on instinct, armor extending without conscious approval. Spike just held his hands up, but there was something unreadable on his face. West bowed his head, taking deep, deep breaths, trying to calm himself down enough to get his armor to listen to him. Finally, it retracted piece by piece, as loathe to retract as he was to retract it.

“So that inhibitor collar doesn’t work,” Spike said, voice unreadable. “Huh. Are we gonna have to take that thing off of you?”

“Don’t,” West said. “It’s deep-wired.”

“Uh-huh.” Spike walked away to throw his trash away, coming back to sit down. “You sure you don’t want lunch?”

“Lunch is for talkers,” West mocked, and looked away.

“Fine.” Spike sighed in frustration, and sighed again. “What happened to you, kid? Why’d you join up with these -- overgrown roombas? You running from something? We can help you.”

West didn’t answer, still. Spike growled frustratedly and kicked over the chair on his way out, forgetting the lunch as it got pushed over to West. He closed the door behind himself. West scooted forwards and leaned forwards as much as he could, snagging the bag with his teeth. He’d just managed to unwrap the burger from the bag and get through about half of it when someone rushed in to take it from him, preferring to throw the bag and its food away than let him keep eating. West licked his chops. Yeah… couldn’t have them losing their bargaining chip. He scoffed. When he was let out of his floor-manacles later that night to be able to lay down, he fell asleep hard and fast that night. He dreamed of Devastator.

  
  


\----------------------------------

  
  


Three days later, and the whole place was in a hubbub. West could hear them outside, and nobody had come to put him back in the floor cuffs. Had they forgotten about him? He got up, hands cuffed in front of them, and activated his armor, noting the hitch that was still there at first. He went around and listened to where there was the most activity, then a little less, and finally the least. He broke the simple handcuffs with a grunt and set to work cutting out a piece of the corrugated metal, kicking out the square and crawling out. He crept along the back wall and peeked around the corner. At the end of the alley, towards the common forum, soldiers and cars were all in a bustle, running all over the place and shouting. West jogged behind the warehouses until he came on the three he’d been trying to break into… he ran to the last one, cutting his way into this one too and confronted the sea of motorcycles and small cars. Yield had to be in here somewhere. He didn’t have much time. He activated his rollerblades and skated up and down each line, wishing he could free them all. After 6 rows of searching, West found him -- he had dust on his saddle seat, compared to the flashier motorcycles on either side of him that had clearly been taken out and used.

West knelt, fishing around in the internals around his front wheel for the inhibitor, grunting. He found the little plug and wrapped his fingers around it, pulling. He pulled, and tugged, grunting. He could hear people shouting outside and it put him on edge. Finally, the inhibitor pulled free with a pop and West flung it away just as Yield transformed with a triumphant roar, shaking himself loose. He quieted, looked around, and then looked down at West, face lighting up behind his mask.  _ “West! _ ” he cried, overjoyed, and bent down to scoop the kid up, hugging him. West felt three different vertebrae crack, and while he couldn’t deny it felt damn good, he also couldn’t breathe -- even with his armor on.

“Y-yield,” he managed, tapping on the bot’s shoulder. “Yield! You’re -- crushing me-!”

“Oh!” Yield flushed, dropping West. “Sorry. Forget how fragile you all are.” He scratched the back of his head, looking around. “What’s -- going on?”

West lay in the floor, wheezing. “I’m here to bust you out,” West said, grinning like a fool behind his visor. “So let’s get a move on!”

Yield beamed behind the mask and transformed, revving his engine. “Well then, hop on! Let’s --  _ blow this popsicle stand! _ Right?”

West laughed out loud and jumped on, grabbing onto the handles as Yield took off so fast he spun out for a moment, his tires squealing on the smooth concrete. They made it out of the little hole that West had cut for himself and fishtailed around the side of the building, shooting out of the alleyway into the main hubbub, startling several people. Before anyone could shout, they were already halfway up the hill to the chainlink fence. West aimed his laser gun in his arm and did his best to cut a steady line up for Yield to aim for. He looked back over his shoulder -- only one car was even giving chase. West just cackled out loud and lowered his visor to stick his tongue out and wiggle his fingers by his ears, high on the giddy rush. Once they got onto the road it was far easier to lose the single car following them. They made a stop at a drive-thru and West scarfed down the food without even having Yield flick out his kickstand, using his own foot to prop them both up. After he was done he tossed the trash away and they were off again.

“Where to next, partner?” Yield asked, steering them expertly through traffic.

“Dunno,” West said. “Everyone was in a big tizzy at the base for some reason -- I wanna check the news, see if there’s anything we gotta show up to class for, so to speak. They took my comms.”

“Gotcha.” Yield pulled over in front of a television store and let West use his feet to prop them both up again, engine idling. West watched the multiple screens in the store window, humming thoughtfully. They waited, but nothing was on. “You know,” Yield started, hesitantly, then stopped. “Y’know,” he managed, “um… I’m really glad to see you again.”

“You too, Yield.” West leaned forwards and patted his dash. “I’ve missed you like hell lately. Can’t wait to get back to joyriding with you, you hunk’a junk.”

Yield’s engine revved so hard West could feel the vibrations. “Uh-! Yeah,” he managed. “Um -- is anything on the news?”

“Mm-nmm,” West hummed, shaking his head as he leaned his elbows on Yield’s handlebars. “But I just -- can’t shake this feeling something big is about to go down. Or  _ is  _ going down. I don’t know.”

“Let me try my comms.” He commed Optimus first, but no answer there. Then he tried Bumblebee. He sat up a little straighter, nearly throwing West off-balance. “Yes sir. Er -- um -- yes. Yes. Right away.”

“What, what is it?” West laid his chin on the backs of his hands, elbows still propped on Yield’s handlebars. “We needed somewhere?”

“Yeah,” Yield said, engine revving. “Bee says he needs us, stat, gave me coordinates. Hold on, squirt.”

“Stop calling me that!” West laughed, but grabbed on tight. “Alright, go.” When Yield took off he screamed with glee, unfolding his visor to let the wind rip at his face and ears. The rest of his armor unfolded as he started to laugh, whooping and hollering as they flew down the road. He’d forgotten he still had the same tied-up t-shirt and short shorts on, but they were perfect for this. The wind bit and tore at him in the best way, as they rocketed through city limits out to less and less inhabited areas, until they were just tearing through solid desert, the odd tumbleweed or cactus their only company. The Earth rumbled beneath them, as over the desert crags, a huge,  _ huge  _ gestalt loomed. West’s armor engaged immediately despite the fact that they weren’t even within firing range and he felt his palms get sweaty under his armor. “God, I haven’t seen a gestalt since New York,” he said, suddenly nervous. “What the hell is going on over there?”

“Dunno, but that’s where Bee says he wants us,” Yield said, and cut a hard left, and slalomed through some craggy pieces. He jumped into the basin that the Autobots were fighting in, and West felt the walls of his throat squeeze up as it looked uncomfortably close to the gorge that they’d gotten pinned down in before Cybertron. “Wait, who’s that running the show there?”

West squinted, taking in the blocky yellow bot waving his arms and pointing, his black helm cut through with a purple visor. Both Yield and West groaned at once.  _ “... Swindle!” _

“If I never see him again after this, it’s way too soon,” Yield grumbled. “He’s such a sleaze!”

“You’re tellin’  _ me!” _ West leaned to balance himself as Yield skidded to a halt by Bee.

“No time to welcome you back, boys,” Bumblebee said, wrangling with a Constructicon. “Just jump in and start swinging!”

“Right!” West and Yield separated and charged in. West immediately started tangoing with another Constructicon, wriggling and shooting and grappling with the mass of chartreuse plating in front of him. Overhead, air support -- theirs or the Autobots, West wasn’t sure -- flew in. An Earth-shattering  **_BOOM_ ** rang out and West managed to fight the Constructicon on top of him off, turning to look. Prime had just dropped from the sky and  _ squished  _ Swindle, and was already commanding people to lock fire on the gestalt, rallying people. The Structi beside West tried to make a grab for him and he growled, elbowing him in the nose and then shooting him, knocking him back where he stayed laid out flat. The fight was over embarrassingly quickly after Prime showed up, and Skywatch rounded up the Stunticons. To avoid them grabbing Yield, West sat on his shoulder, eyeing anyone who came near him. He was so wrapped up in keeping an eye on Skywatch he barely noticed Bumblebee announcing that the fighting was over, and he was going to have a peace talk of sorts with Witwicky right then and there.

“Stay with me,” West whispered in Yield’s ear.

“Gladly,” Yield muttered back, eyeing both Skywatch and Magnus nervously, even though Magnus was down for the count and being tended to by Ratchet. “I’m actually -- just in case.” He transformed into his motorcycle form, and West hopped off, waiting until he was done to climb back onto him.

“Yield, take me closer,” West muttered to the motorbike, nodding at whatever Spike and Bumblebee were saying. “I wanna know what’s going on.”

“...ime vouches for you,” Spike explained, “It looks like you have some wounded. Let’s see if we can help.”

“Help?” West said, voice shooting up in indignation. “I think you and yours have done quite enough, Witwicky.”

“West, enough,” Bumblebee snapped. 

West’s jaw dropped behind his visor, but he didn’t press it. He just let Yield turn them around and start to drive away. “Whatever,” he grumbled. But when it came closer to sundown, and Yield was being tended to for some injuries, West made his way back over to Spike and Bumblebee, who were still conversing. Spike was perched on top of a rock that brought him more up to Bee’s level. West deactivated his armor, and crossed his arms, looking Spike up and down.

“What’s he want?” he asked Bee, in Autobot Neocybex.

“He wants an allyship,” Bee answered. “He says he’ll stop hunting us.”

“Great, so he’ll do the bare minimum,” West deadpanned. “Never seen a man do  _ that  _ before. That’s sarcasm, by the way. Want you to know that.”

“Yes, I know,” Bee said, tiredly.

“Look.” Spike slid down the rock and landed in front of West, addressing both of them. “You don’t trust me, I don’t trust you, I get that. You don’t trust me because I’ve locked up your friends, and I don’t trust you because you’re giant alien robots. But if we don’t at least try to start working on change, the future doesn’t look any different from the past. Friend of yours taught me that.”

“Great,” West remarked in Autobot Neocybex, flipping a palm up as he looked at Bee. “So the person who  _ started  _ all this shit is wanting to work on  _ change and healing. _ Can you  _ believe  _ this schmuck?”

“For what it’s worth,” Witwicky said, in Autobot Neocybex, though his was more halting (West wouldn’t hesitate to admit he was smug about that.) “I am trying to reach out, here.”

West flushed furiously, and switched to his preferred: Decepticon. “You honorless little swine,” he hissed, stamping a foot. Then he looked up at Bee again. “Do we  _ have  _ to work with him?”

“Do you have a better idea?” Bee asked, pointedly in Autobot Neocybex.

“West,” Spike said, in English again, “I know that you and I don’t have the best history.”

“You  _ starved  _ me! You used one of the inhibitors on me and almost fried out my nervous system!”

“He  _ did?” _ Bee asked, brow knitting down.

“N-not fully,” Spike pacified. “Er -- anyway, um. Well, West -- we might be able to work on something together, too. See -- come with me, for a second?”

West glanced at Bumblebee, who nodded, face stern. West took it as an “I got your back” and went with Spike, where the other human drew him away. 

“You seem to have grown into a fine young man,” Spike said, “And I’m going to be honest, I trust you  _ far  _ more than I do your friends. So I’ve got an offer for you. I want you to be the official ambassador between your shiny chrome friends over there, and us regular folks.”

West eyed him, suspiciously. “Twelve hours ago you had me in irons, and now you’re offering me a job?”

“That’s about the size of it.”

“What about Yield? The fact that I broke us out?” West shook his hands in front of himself, rattling the cuffs minus their chains still on his wrists.

Spike waved a hand. “Water under the bridge. You don’t have to make the decision now.”

“Would I have an official job? With pay? What would my position be?”

“You would be brought on as an employee of the Skywatch branch of the United States Military,” Spike summed up. “Comes with eight years of obligatory military service, but you can fill that with the ambassador job as a non-combatant.”

“Isn’t it usually four for deals like this?” West asked, suspiciously.

“Special case.”

West looked back over to his friends, his family. He chewed on it, frowning. “I need to talk to Bumblebee,” he decided. “Oh, and -- Spike?”

“Hm?”

West hauled off and cold-cocked him, bare knuckles cracking Spike across the cheek. He backed away, shaking his hand out, the flash of pain a welcome sensation.  _ “That’s _ for my family.” He turned back around, scowling, and ran back over to the bots, feet slapping against the packed sand and dust. Magnus was up and about, shouting and hollering about treason and collusion and whatnot. West just hovered by Yield. Magnus locked sights on the motorcycle and began to storm forwards, opening his mouth to arrest the motorcycle.

West stepped in his path and crossed his arms, tilting his chin up. He still had to stare out from under his dark brows at the giant. Magnus pulled his foot back abruptly, looking all the world afraid to step on him.

“Back off, Magnus,” West said. “War’s over.” 

“I -- I’m --” Magnus spluttered, eyes boggling, and pointed at West while looking over at Bumblebee. “Directly involving indigent species! That’s a -- you are in  _ direct  _ and  _ flagrant  _ violation of Sections 23 and 45 of the Autobot code, subsections 32a, 32c, and 68b! This is serious, Bumblebee, I’m going to have to --”

“Who do you answer to?” Bumblebee said, putting his hands on his hips.”

“An independent body impaneled to --”

“No.” Bee shook his head. “On this planet, you answer to  _ me. _ And I’m saying nobody’s getting arrested today. Not Hot Rod, not Yield, nobody. Got that?”

Magnus’s jaw dropped. He looked like he was going to answer, but the ship he rode in on powered up its engines, and West glanced over to where Hot Rod had been sitting to ask something. But he was gone!

“Hot Rod just -- stole my ship!” Magnus cried, as his ship rose into the air and sped away, off into space.

“Wish he’d taken me with him,” West muttered into his fist. As the hubbub died down, and everyone prepped to go home for the night to prep for the move to the southwest Skywatch base, West approached Bumblebee. “Hey, Bee.”

“Hm?” Bumblebee turned, and then smiled. “West! I -- I’m sorry, I haven’t even gotten to say that I’m glad you’re back. Are you alright? How’s Yield?”

“We’re good.” West puffed his cheeks and sighed through them. “Yeah. Good. Listen, I wanted to say…” West sighed, again. “Witwicky offered me a job. In the military. As the human ambassador between us and them.”

“I --” Bumblebee blinked, owlishly. “Really?”

“Yeah.” West chewed his lower lip and looked away. “I’m thinking about taking it, but I’m not sure.”

“You are?” Bumblebee questioned. “But I thought you didn’t trust them either.”

“Oh, I don’t,” West said, glancing over to the Skywatch jets flying off to be barely specks on the horizon. “That’s why I wanna take it.”

  
  


\------------------------------

  
  


“This’ll be your office, here.” The soldier showed West around the new base. Its walls were riveted metal, the floors concrete. “Nice and spacious if you ask me.”

“Uh-huh.” West peeked in, and looked around. It was nice. He’d been living on spaceships or in caves before this, so he really couldn’t complain. The soldier beckoned him along for the rest of the tour, ending in a spacious command center room where Optimus was currently kneeling, talking to the General that had to approve this.

“... your bravery and brilliant soldiering made the defeat of the Decepticons possible,” Optimus said, gravely.

“Er… yes, thank you,” the General said.

“Sir,” the soldier saluted. “The human ambassador.”

The General turned around -- West didn’t salute. He just inclined his head and stepped forwards, extending a hand. He bit his tongue on a snide remark. As much as these people rubbed him the wrong way, this was a new era and he couldn’t exactly pull his weight with the Autobots by beating the shit out of things anymore. “West of Statsin,” he introduced himself, firmly shaking the General’s hand. “Pleased to meet you.”

“I heard you’ve been causing some trouble, son,” the General said, maybe trying to make a joke, but it only made West’s lip twitch a little before he forced a smile. “My son Spike says you’ve given us a hard time.”

“Just doing my  _ other  _ job, sir,” West said, smiling still. “Thank you for bringing me on.”

“Mhm. You’ve gotta tell our scientists how that suit works, one day.”

“I can’t divulge  _ all  _ of Jackie’s secrets,” West said, shaking his head. When the General pulled Spike aside to another room, West waited until they were gone and turned to Optimus. “You know I don’t like this,” he remarked, in Decepticon Neocybex. “Even if I signed up to be ambassador.”

“I know. Thank you for helping us anyways.”

West softened. “Yeah, well.” He smiled haphazardly. “Where would y’all be without me, huh?”

“Indeed.” Optimus turned to the computers to begin investigating. “Yield has been laying low in the back hallways,” he remarked. “I believe he’s still a bit nervous about coming here. He was asking after you.”

“I’ll go see him, then.” West activated his armor and the rollerblade shoes, and skated through the halls, working his way deeper and deeper into the complex. He ran into Yield after twenty minutes of searching, where the motorcycle was looking into his energon like he expected it to reveal some kind of secret to him. “What’s up, junkmeister?” West called, skating to a halt next to him and ending his movement with a cocky lean against the motorbike’s side.

Yield jumped, nearly dropping the cube. He hastily subspaced it and glanced over, smiling behind his mask. “West! Good to see you. I was getting a little lonely.” 

“Uh-huh.” West checked his clock on his HUD. It was getting late, and West smiled devilishly, retracting his armor and skates. “Say -- what say you and I get up to some mischief away from here?”

“Like what?”

“Weeellll,” West cajoled, beaming as he sidled up close, putting his interlocked hands under his chin, “it’s a full moon tonight, and there’s a lake nearby. What say you and I go skinny dipping?”

“I… don’t think I’ve ever done that.” Yield scratched his head, one brow going up. “What the  _ hell  _ is skinny dipping?”

“It’s a very human thing,” West waved aside, tilting his head. “You go swim in the water with no clothes on.”

“That just sounds like taking a bath.”

“Kinda! Except instead of being in your bathroom, you’re… in the ocean, or in a lake, or in the pool.”

“Jeez, West! Do you wanna get --  _ seen  _ by someone? You’re ambassador now! Don’t you gotta be -- I dunno, respectable?”

“What, like I’m not still a gay party animal? Anyways, don’t worry about it, nobody ever comes by the lake at night.” West laughed. “Seriously! It’s fine. If you don’t wanna, that’s also fine, but -- it’ll be fun! You look mopey as hell. Having some fun will do you good.”

Yield thought about it, and then grinned behind his mask. “Alright, fine. C’mon, let’s go.”

“Yesss!” West cheered softly, pumping his fist. “This is gonna be a blast!”

  
  


\------------------------------

  
  


Yield screeched to a halt on the dock, engine purring. West hopped off, stripping off his top and tossing it onto the dock, and then shimmying out of his shorts and underwear. He just stepped out of them, feeling the slight chill in the early spring air bite into his skin. He rubbed his upper arms, turning around to giggle at Yield, and then whooped, jumping into the lake. He went below the surface, holding his breath, until he floated up again, taking a gasping breath and moving the wet hair from his face. Yield had transformed and was sitting on the dock, staring at West with a strange expression on his face. “Well aren’t you gonna come in?” West laughed, treading water.

Yield shrugged, laughed, and waded in, the water coming up to about his waist. He waded over to West and West swam further away, giggling, until the water was up to his chest. He then lunged through the water, splashing Yield in the face with a wave of water, making him splutter and wave his arms. “Ack-! West! Hey!”

“Well, aren’t you gonna do something about it?” West goaded, smiling so much his cheeks hurt.

“Oh, you bet I will-!” Yield growled, grinning, and waded after him. West squealed and splashed away, laughing the whole while under the moon. It glinted off of Yield’s plating -- all of his edges and armor, making the red glow of his eyes softer in the pale blue moonlight. Hands extended, he managed to swipe underneath West and scoop him up, bringing the young man back towards his chest. He quickly dunked West under the water and brought him back up, as West coughed and laughed, trying to get the hair out of his face. They settled down, West leaning back against Yield’s shoulder to look up at the moon. 

Yield’s hand reached over him, only for the motorcycle’s fingers to gently pinch and rub some of his hair between them, as he studied it curiously. “You all are so curious,” he murmured, and West just let him feel the blonde hair, stare at it. “I used to think you all were frail, and weak. And then New York happened, and I was scared of you. And now…”

West leaned over to plant a kiss on the side of his head. “It’s a brave new world, junkmeister. Humans defy expectations like that. We’re actually pretty resilient.”

“Yeah.” He looked at the hair sitting on his fingers, and let his hand fall away, where it poked West gently in the stomach. “But still so squishy!”

“Stop!” West squealed, shoving his hand off and laughing. “That tickles!” He moved away from resting his back against Yield and treaded water facing him, chin above the waterline. They just stared for a moment or two, and then burst into giggles together, West chewing his lower lip. He reached up, snagging one of Yield’s hands and then reaching for the other, making a grabby hand. Yield, confused, gave it, and West started bouncing them gently back and forth, pulling himself closer and pushing himself away one shoulder before the other. After a moment, still dancing, he laughed at Yield. “I’m dancing, dumbass.”

“Ah.” Yield gently joined in, as if hesitant to break him. “Strange dance.”

“Yeah, well.” West grinned. “My feet aren’t even touching the bottom right now, so forgive me for not having a lot of options.” He guided Yield into putting an arm over his head as he spun, transitioning right back into doing his little shimmy. The moon shone overhead as crickets chirped in the grass, near the treeline. West looked Yield up and down. “You look cute tonight.”

He watched Yield flush and snickered. “M-me?” Yield asked, letting go of one of West’s hands to point to his chest.”

“No, the  _ other  _ handsome motorcycle that’s skinny dipping with me in a lake,” West laughed. “Yes, you!”

“T-thank you.” Yield looked away, scratching the back of his head. “Wasn’t sure you felt the same way.”

“Yeah. I think you’re hot.”

“Feels weird,” Yield said, puffing a sigh through his cheeks. “Like we shouldn’t, or something.”

West pulled himself closer, and pushed off Yield’s hands to push himself up enough to plant a kiss on Yield’s mask, as if he were kissing him on the cheek. It helped that Yield leaned down to meet him. “Brave new world, junkmeister,” West whispered, softly.


	8. I'm Still Standing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> West falls into his new role as ambassador, but Spike is doing a little too much poking around. And when Skywatch has the curtain pulled away, trouble abounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> all the trigger warnings in this chapter have to do with things pertaining to, or directly with physically, verbally, and emotionally abusive parents. 
> 
> \- cursory description of the injuries that West has received from his parents over the years (on an x-ray) -- first set of "***"
> 
> \- spike goes to talk with his father and clement does that abusive parent thing where he's nice and everything but you can just Tell because of little things he says (i'm sorry, i don't know how to phrase this better) -- second set of "***"
> 
> \- West calls his parents on the phone and they have a nice "reconciliatory" conversation. -- third set of "***"

“I looked over the files we have on the kid,” the General said, crossing his arms across from Spike, who just sheepishly looked away. “He looks like a  _ loose  _ cannon crossed with a  _ glass  _ cannon! He’s got more baggage than an airline flight. I’ve got six soldiers more groomed for something like this. You should’ve consulted me before asking him to come on as ambassador.”

“Well --” Spike stammered, “Dad, he -- um. He knows the major languages back to front, he’s got a close working relationship with them. I made a strategic decision.”

“You  _ should’ve _ consulted me,” General Witwicky insisted, crossing his arms. “There’s no  _ way  _ we can control him. We had the analysts do a psych workup for him. There’s no way he’d even be qualified for  _ general  _ service, let alone a diplomat’s job.”

“W-well, tell that to the robots,” Spike said, helplessly. “After we brought him on and started having second thoughts, they insisted he was all they’d work with. And he’s been doing his job.”

“The satellites caught him going off base one night to go splash around in the lake with a Con! Skinny dipping, like a  _ teenager!” _ the General uncrossed his arms, and then just crossed them again, scowling. “His behavior is reckless and frivolous, he’s too preoccupied with being a “perfected homosexual” as he puts it, and he’s far too eager to jump in with both feet. I wouldn’t put this boy anywhere near a military operation if my life depended on it -- he’s  _ far  _ too headstrong! His own father did a  _ piss-poor _ job with him!”

“You’re tellin’  _ me,”  _ Spike muttered, rubbing his jaw.  _ “And _ he’s got a mean right hook.”

_ “No _ respect for authority,” the General agreed. “Find a way to edge him out, Spike. Something that won’t tip off the robots. Make him  _ want  _ to leave.”

“Yes, Sir.” Spike nodded, and the two parted ways, leaving Spike to chew on that. He made his way back to his office, and opened up West’s file, flicking through the thick stack of papers in the folder. He ignored the psychiatric eval at first. That was new to him -- he wanted to look over the old info first. Missing person since December 29, 2015, made his way steadily across the United States -- looking for what, Spike wasn’t sure -- and got picked up by the Autobots at eighteen. 

The earlier parts of his life were largely a mystery, though he did visit the hospital a fair amount as a child. A few reports had been made from the attending physicians to child services, but nothing had ever come of it. Spike looked to see what the results of his physical exam was, but there wasn’t one. Hmm. He got up, closing the folder and taking it with him down to West’s office, where the boy was working on a datapad propped up on a frame, typing so quickly his fingers were a blur. Everything on the screen was in Neocybex. Spike resisted the urge to groan. Translating West’s reports was a pain, but the kid insisted he worked better in Neocybex. Spike hovered in the doorway and knocked.

“Just a moment,” West said, eyes glued to his screen. After finishing his sentence, he leaned back in his chair and looked over the translucent pad. “What can I do for you, Major Witwicky?”

“Says here you haven’t done your physical, yet,” Spike said, waggling the folder. “We need that on file, West.”

“Yeah, well.” West sighed through his puffed cheeks. “I’ve been putting it off. I  _ hate  _ going to the doctor’s.”

“Uh-huh. Well, clinic’s open. We can get it done now.”

“Uh, I’m a little busy,” West said, giving him a sassy look from under one raised eyebrow. “I  _ do  _ have a job. You gave it to me.”

“And part of that job is making sure we have your physical on file, let’s go,” Spike said impatiently, waving him along. “Save your work, you can finish it later. This won’t take all day.”

“Can’t I just do it  _ tomorrow?” _

God in heaven, this kid was _ irritating!  _ Spike resisted the urge to growl, and kept his cool. “Nope, sorry. Time to face the music. It’s a week overdue.”

West groaned, and got up, pushing his chair back in and dusting off his tee and shorts combo… with bare feet. Again.

“Dude, you  _ gotta  _ wear shoes,” Spike reminded him. “You’ve got a job with us now, you  _ gotta  _ wear your shoes to work. At least socks?”

“If I wear shoes and need to skate somewhere, they won’t work,” West said, and gestured around. “I live in places sized for people over twice my size. Do you know how long it would take me to get anywhere if I had to walk everywhere?”

“They do make bikes, you know,” Spike half-laughed, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, like I’m gonna bike everywhere inside when I have perfectly good rollerblades built-in.” West kept up with Spike, walking double-time to keep pace. He was a tenacious one, that was for sure. “Sorry, shoes are a no-go.”

“Well, at least cut your hair. That’s way past regulation, too.”

West looked as if Spike had just asked him to kill his own dog, and put a hand to his hair, pulled back with an alligator clip and bleached platinum blonde. It made him look like a valley girl in Spike’s opinion, especially with the tan and freckles, but he didn’t say anything.  _ “No! _ You keep your military clippers  _ away  _ from my hair! Look, I’m doing my job and the only people I have to see are you and the bots. They don’t care, and neither should you. I’m already doing your physical. Couldn’t Ratty check me out?”

“Nope,” Spike said, pushing the door to the in-base clinic open and letting West walk through first. “We want a  _ human  _ doctor checking out the  _ human  _ ambassador for the physical.”

West just rolled his eyes and went up to the counter, admitting he was here for a general physical like he was signing himself up for municipally-mandated suicide. Spike just sat in the waiting room while he was taken back, and then went up to the receptionist, chasing a hunch. “Tell the doctor to order an x-ray for me,” he said, winking. “I know it’s part of the physical, but make sure a copy gets into his file.”

“Mhm.” The receptionist typed something down. “Done, Major Witwicky.”

“Thanks, Amy.” Spike sat back down and took out West’s file again, deciding to read over the psych evaluation while he waited. West was headstrong (he knew that), extremely manipulative and underhanded, and had a tendency to deflect questions and topics away from himself on anything other than shallow conversation or positive discussions about his appearance. In fact, he was  _ overly  _ concerned with his appearance to the point where it dipped into narcissism, often preening and taking an obsessive concern with his physical appearance. He was flighty and petty, and he was vicious when it came to correcting perceived slights. He took a degree of pleasure in lording power over those he deemed lesser, and he was incredibly fickle, often doting over someone one day and dropping them like a hot poker the next. The psychiatrist had also noted that West avoided any topic of his parents, but in particular his father, and made the observation that there was obviously unresolved tension with that topic. Spike sighed heavily, rubbing his temple against the headache he could feel coming. This… was going to be a handful.

Twenty minutes later, West emerged, grumbling as he adjusted his shirt. “They made me do an x-ray,” he complained, standing in front of Spike. “I  _ hate  _ x-rays.”

“That’s just procedure, kid,” Spike shrugged, closing the manilla folder and standing up. “You’re free to go. Thanks for knocking this out.”

“Yeah.” West huffed and crossed his arms. “Sure.” Then he was off, back to his office. Spike watched him transform that exoskeleton of a suit out over himself and take off on his skates, rollerblading out of sight. He wasn’t going to lie -- he was hoping that the x-ray was going to give him insight into just how that suit worked, but it wasn’t the  _ only  _ thing he was looking for. The kid had been in and out of hospitals when he was younger for breaks and sprains, and he was betting there were more breaks than he’d gone to the doctor for. By the time he’d gotten back to his office, the results of the physical were emailed to him, and he went straight to the x-ray. 

***

As he’d suspected -- his bones showed a myriad of healed breaks and cracks. His ribs looked like a spiderweb of old and more recent breaks. His forearm had breaks and his wrists looked like they’d had a few torsion fractures. He had a few newer breaks, probably from his time with the Autobots. The metal over his spine stretched in a big white block from neck to lumbar vertebrae, and went deeper under the skin. Wires and metal stretched into his nervous system and up his spine like roots of a tree, confirming just how deeply wired this thing was.

***

Spike closed the tab, humming. He had a hunch to chase. He decided to indulge it. West’s childhood was a mystery -- what had prompted him to go cross-country rather than just move one or two states over, and what had made him fall in with the robots? Spike couldn’t help but feel the answer was back in Statsin, Iowa. He logged that he’d be out of office and commandeered a two-person plane, taking Campagnolo with him. It was an hour or three flight to Iowa, where they landed in a field nearby West’s home neighborhood and left the plane. An old concrete pad for a barn, scored with old wounds, still sat, but it had a covered couple pallets of wood and some buckets for mixing new cement nearby, as if someone was going to rebuild it. Spike and Campagnolo made their way onto a neighborhood street, and Spike pulled up the address they were looking for. “113 Yarrow Drive, Henny County, city of Statsin.” They looked around, walking down the street, noting as they walked. “130 Yarrow Drive… 122… 118… ah! 113.” 

It was a compact little one-story house, with a mailbox by the street and a rectangular silhouette, with what looked like the complex of private rooms off to the left and the living space off to the right. Spike walked up the quaint pebbled sidewalk and imagined West, running up the driveway to catch the bus. He snorted back a laugh -- he could barely picture it. West just seemed the type to always have been with the ‘bots. Finally he ascended the small brick stairway and rang the doorbell, straightening his posture. 

***

“Coming!” a woman’s voice called from inside, and then a woman with mousy brown hair and tired eyes opened the door. “Yes?”

“Are you Melissa McLambert?” Spike asked.

“Yes, is something the matter?” she asked, eyebrows pulling up. West had her eyes and her nose, but not much else about her -- except for the brown that sometimes peeked through the roots of his hair.

“Oh, no ma’am,” Spike said, flashing an easy smile. “We’re just with the U.S. Military, and we wanted to talk about your son, West McLambert.”

“What’s he done now?” a man’s voice called out, and an older man came in from further in the living room, suspiciously. Spike could see a lot of West in his face -- the angle of his brow, the pout of his lips, the structure of his jaw. Melissa was just frozen in the door, looking like a deer in the headlights.

“Oh, nothing,” Spike assured. “May we come in?”

“C-Certainly.” Melissa stood aside to let them in, closing the door behind them. “Can I get you anything? Water, coffee?”

“Maybe a coffee,” Campagnolo said, and Melissa scurried off to make a pot. Clement sat down in the recliner as Spike and Campagnolo took the couch.

“So, this is the first I’ve heard of my son in quite some time,” Clement said. “I… I’ll be honest, we thought he was  _ dead.” _

“He is very much alive and well, sir,” Spike said, “which I’m sure you’re glad to hear.” Melissa bent over the counter in the other room, and Spike pretended not to notice her crying into her hands.

“That  _ is  _ a relief,” Clement admitted, looking a little choked up himself. “How did you find out? This doesn’t really seem like U.S. Military material.”

“Well, sir, it’s a classified situation, but I can tell you he works for us now, in a non-combat position.”

“Well, he joined the army!” Clement chuckled, leaning back, pride stitched over his features. “Always knew he’d buck up and be a real man one day. How is he?”

“He’s excellent, sir. We were actually coming to ask a little more about how he grew up -- you know, to fill in details for his file.” Spike made a face, waving aside. “The suits up top -- you know how they are. Details, details, details.”

“Mhm.” Clement nodded, closing his eyes. “Well, let’s see. Had him in Y2K -- on Christmas Day, actually. He was an easy kid, as a baby. Very bright. You could see it in his eyes.” Clement pointed two fingers to his own eyes and grinned before relaxing, looking up at the ceiling as he sighed. “Like he was always calculating. He was born a girl, and maybe at about -- 4, 5? Decided he was a boy, and at first, you know.” Clement waved a hand. “We fought it, Melissa and I. Figured it was just a phase because a lot of his classmates were boys and he was just a tomboy. But -- you know, he’s always been  _ so  _ headstrong, and plus the pediatrician said it’d be better to just let him grow into it, so we went with it. And it just stuck. We actually called him Jackson, at first.” Clement chuckled. “You know, the boy name we had worked up. Uh -- made things easier for a bit. And you know -- I was damn glad to have a son! Someone to toss the ball around with.”

Spike nodded. “My father used to take me on trips to the woods -- just us and our packs. I understand.”

“See -- I think that’s where I went wrong,” Clement insisted. “It’s good for a young boy to go outside, play around in the dirt. Builds character. But instead, all he wanted to do was stay in and play with dolls and cars when he was younger. And I said ‘son, you can’t have it both ways.’ I’ve always been worried he was never going to man up, even  _ after  _ he started running out to the woods when he was a little older. We just butted heads more and more over the years.” Clement shook his head. “Like I said -- very headstrong. If you say the sky is blue, he’ll say it’s purple just to be contrary. Of course -- I’m no pushover. I let him know who’s boss.” Clement nodded, resolutely. “Guess I wasn’t strict enough, or he was just too smart. He got involved with drugs, and then four days after his sixteenth birthday, one day we woke up and he was just gone. We thought he’d just run off to the woods again until he didn’t come back.”

Clement sighed. “‘Course, when he started yammering about robots at nine, I should’ve known something was up. I mean -- look at what happened in New York!”

“Hold on a moment --” Spike said, “Robots?”

“Indeed. I always thought he was making things up, but Ol’ Joseph, god rest his soul, down the road insisted his old barn was totalled by something big and ever since he saw it, he was too frightened to ever go back to it. His son is  _ finally  _ doing something with that old concrete pad out there.”

“Right, right --” Spike waved aside, and leaned forwards. “What can you tell us about what West had to do with robots?”

“Oh, you know how kids are,” Clement said, waving a hand. “He said it was the biggest one ever, and she was teaching him how to speak robot language -- he called it something else, but I can’t remember for the life of me. He’d disappear for a couple days at a time and come running back home with his backpack on, yammering about it. Eventually we just tuned him out.”

“I see. Did he ever describe the robot?”

“Er, let’s see.” Clement frowned. “Big yellow eyes, huge horns, big chin. He said she was big enough that he could sleep in her hand, and she had big wings. Like some kind of plane wings. With jet turbines.”

That didn’t sound like any ‘bot that Skywatch had recorded on file. “And -- when did this happen?”

“When he was about nine,” Clement nodded. “Yup. It was all he’d talk about for years until he left.”

“I see.” Spike sighed, getting up. Clement did too. “Well -- thank you for the offer of coffee, Mr. and Mrs. McLambert, but we’ve got it busy over at the Pentagon, you know. We gotta get going.”

“Of course.” Clement shook their hands, nodding. “And -- if you could, could you get my son to call us? It’s been… a long time.”

“I’ll do my best, sir.”

“Oh, wait, um --” Melissa came in, having put Campagnolo’s coffee into a paper cup. “Here. And -- he used to spend a lot of time at Wesley Cartwright’s house. He was friends with Wesley’s son, Ehsan. It was him, Ehsan, and another boy, Reed, and Ehsan’s girlfriend, Rose. They were close. West wasn’t talking with us very much by the time he ran away… they might have more information.”

***

“Thank you, ma’am.” Spike and Campagnolo left the house and took an Uber to Wesley Cartwright’s address, ending up in a suburban neighborhood with cookie-cutter lawns. They got out and walked up the driveway, knocking on the paneled blue door. This house was two-story, looked like three bedroom. A young man of about twenty answered the door, with dark, curly hair and brown eyes that had dark, dark rings around the edges of the irises. “Uh, can I help you?” he said. 

“Yes, is this the Cartwright residence?”

“Yes,” the kid said, an edge of polite suspicion to his voice. He had on a Zelda t-shirt and a flannel over top. Kids these days -- always into video games. 

“We’re with the U.S. Military,” Spike introduced. “We work with West McLambert in Skywatch.”

“West?” the kid said, voice flying up with his eyebrows. “It’s been forever since I heard from him, like three years. Uh -- is he okay?”

“Yes, he’s fine. May we come in?”

“Hold on.” The kid leaned back, hanging on the doorframe. “Hey, Dad!” he shouted. “Arthur! We got, uh -- we got, like, the army on the doorstep! They’re askin’ about West!”

Someone yelled something back from inside the house, voice pitching up towards the end. The kid sighed and dipped his head, straightening back up. “One second,” he said, trying not to smile, and walked back a few steps further into the house, cupping his hands.  _ “I  _ **_SAID,_ ** _ WE GOT THE ARMY ON THE DOORSTEP, ASKING ABOUT WEST!” _

Footsteps in the other room, and a plump little man in a sweater and some khakis poked his head around the stairway, adjusting his glasses. His eyes nearly boggled out of his head and he came around the corner. “Er -- you can let them in, Ehsan.”

“Gotcha.” Ehsan unbarred the door with his arm aside and gestured. “C’mon in.”

“Thank you.” Spike nodded to Ehsan and then walked up to the plump blond, extending a hand. “You must be Wesley?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Wesley shook it, looking confused. “My partner is upstairs, does he need to be here-?”

“No, not unless he wants to be.”

“Well -- come on, and sit down. You said this was about West McLambert? We haven’t heard from him in a couple years, now.” Ehsan shut the door and followed them into the living room, curious. A game was booted up on the tv, paused.

“Yes. We’ve already spoken to his parents.”

Ehsan made a face, and crossed his arms. Wesley looked like he’d smelled something unpleasant. “Ah. Yes, I’m sure that was… enlightening. You didn’t tell them where he was, did you?”

“Why?”

“No reason,” Wesley said. “They’re very… persistent. Anyways, what did you need to ask us about?”

“Well, his parents say that he wasn’t talking to them very much by the time he ran away. What can you tell us about him?”

Ehsan looked suspicious. But Wesley wasn’t much better. “Er -- what is this for?”

“Nothing much. Just some background info for the suits up top.”

“I see.” Wesley eyed them from over his glasses, frowning. “Well, you know -- lovely young boy, very compassionate and considerate. Very polite. Bit of a rebellious streak, but what teenager his age doesn’t have one. He’s very guarded, so I don’t really know what you’re planning to get from this. I never pressed him -- he could tell me things when he was ready.” He smiled a similarly guarded smile, and Spike saw some of Wesley in the way that West faked politeness and grace. “I don’t really know what you’re wanting to get from this, mister-?”

“Major Spike Witwicky, sir.”

“Spike, then.”

“Skywatch -- isn’t that to do with the robots?” Ehsan asked, one brow going up.

“Yes it is, young man.”

“Uh-huh.”

Spike waited, the air full of pause. “... why, do you know something?”

“No, just curious.” Ehsan shot a look at Wesley, who returned it. These two definitely knew more than they were letting on, but it was also apparent they  _ wouldn’t  _ be sharing. Spike held in an annoyed sigh.

  
  


\-----------------------------------------

  
  


West was finishing up some work on his monitor the next day when Spike poked his head in again. Resisting the urge to sigh dramatically, he just finished his sentence and looked up, as Spike came in further and shut the door behind him. He forcibly kept his armor from extending. “Major Witwicky. What can I do for you?”

“Got a couple questions for you,” the man said, sitting in one of the chairs across from his desk. “Spoke to your parents yesterday.”

West’s jaw dropped so hard he could taste the floor. “You spoke to my  _ parents? _ Who the hell gave you the right?”

“First of all, it’s a free country,” Spike said, crossing his legs with his ankle to his knee. “Second of all, suits up top wanted some more background.”

“You do  _ not  _ need to know what kind of baby food I liked as a kid, or  _ whatever  _ you were there for,” West muttered, harshly beginning to type again. “Un _ believable.” _ His heartbeat pounded in his chest and his armor tried to extend again, making it all the way to his shoulders before he forced it back in.

“Yeah, well.” Spike shrugged, opening West’s file. West  _ haaated  _ that fucking manilla folder. Spike always flipped it open idly whenever he was getting too nosy. “Who was the robot you met when you were nine?”

“Nunya,” West muttered, fingernails clicking on the holopad screen.

“Hm?”

“Nunya fuckin’ business,” West said, not looking at Spike. “She’s not even on Earth anymore anyways. Hasn’t been for a while.”

“Be that as it may, we still want to know.” When West glanced up at Spike from under his brows, Spike looked deadly serious. “This isn’t the kind of thing you want to be playing close to the vest, kid. Not gonna be pretty.”

“Hm.” West leaned back in his chair, tilting his chin up, evaluating. He sucked on his teeth, looking away, and quirked a brow, thinking on it. “Mmhm. Genericon, out by Ol’ Joseph’s barn. She was outta commission for a month.”

“Interesting.” Spike flipped through the folder.  _ “I’ve _ never heard of a Genericon being close to fifty feet tall and having ‘big horns’ and cargo plane wings.”

West’s fingers froze on the keyboard, twitching. “So my father did listen when I talked,” he deadpanned, trying to pass it off. “News to me. Anyways, don’t know what to tell you. You saw how my father is. I thought if I exaggerated the size of the fish he’d take an interest.”

“Uh-huh.” Spike took out a picture of Major General Flux from Autopedia, brandishing it, along with some projected 3d models for scans. “Was  _ this  _ the robot you met?”

West stared at the pictures, and then back up to Spike. “No,” he lied through his teeth, and got back to work. “Now -- do you mind? I’m kinda busy here.”

“You know it’s a serious security risk if you’re involved with a Major General in Megatron’s army.”

“Yes, because you think I met  _ her  _ when I was nine, means I’m some kind of sleeper agent,” West deadpanned again, finishing up the document he was working it on and saving it, sending it off to the translator. “Top notch detective work, Barney. Real good work.” He shut down his monitor and stood up, going around Spike to the door. “Can you get out of my office? I’m going to go talk to Bumblebee and I need to lock the door.”

Spike just sighed and got up, walking out. West waited until he was in the hall before coming outside and closing and locking the door. 

“Your father wanted to know if you could call him,” Spike said, remembering Clement’s request. “He and your mother cried when they found out you were alive.”

West’s armor flicked out with such speed Spike barely saw it extend. The rollerblades activated moments afterwards, and did a mocking salute before taking off down the hall to the command center. Nobody was there, so he did some searching around and found Bumblebee in the infirmary with Cliffjumper, teaching the human medic how to tend to Cybetronians. West hung out with them for a little bit until Spike was back already. West groaned into his hand, but it wasn’t about him (for just this once, he was grateful.)

“I need to talk to the boss around here,” Spike said. Ratchet, Cliffjumper, and West all pointed to Bumblebee without a second thought, all staring at Spike.

“Yeah, no -- sorry, your other boss.”

“Only got one boss,” Cliffjumper growled.

“It’s kinda a thing,” West summed up, shrugging.

“Right -- sorry. Where’s Prime?”

  
  


\---------------------------------------

  
  


West watched Brawn complain and trumpet about how he’d been left behind. Spike had taken seven of the bots to North Korea, including Bumblebee, Prime, and a couple others, leaving Bluestreak and Brawn behind. Yield was sitting next to West, as West watched Brawn whine and complain like a mule.

“They brought  _ Cliffjumper. _ I mean, that’s fine. But look at this.” With a grunt, he hefted an entire tank over his head, and West bit his lip, balancing his chin in his fist. “You think Cliffjumper could do  _ this?” _

“God, he looks like he could rip me in  _ half,” _ West muttered to Yield, grinning with half-lidded eyes. “Huh?”

“He looks like he could rip  _ me  _ in half!” Yield murmured back, grimacing. “And  _ not  _ in the fun way!”

“Pfft.” West waved it away. “You just don’t like his temper. I can overlook it.”

“You can overlook  _ a lot,” _ Yield said, one brow going up. “It’s the size of  _ Iacon.” _

“Look, if you’re just there for the spike, the personality doesn’t matter too much, capisce?” West whispered, patting his arm with a grin. “You and I are different because we’re  _ actually  _ besties for life, ya know. But -- c’mon. Nobody actually  _ likes  _ Brawn. He’s a  _ huge  _ whiner.”

Yield made a shrug with his mouth, nodding. “Can’t argue with that.”

“Look, Brawn,” Bluestreak said, smiling that “I hate you” smile. “They didn’t need all of us, okay? It’s pretty simple why you got left behind. You’re very unpleasant.”

“And yet you’re sitting here on your can, too,” Brawn growled, gruff.

“That’s because I was needed here,” Bluestreak said. “You’re just nasty.”

“Aren’t you guys like seven million years old, or something?” Campagnolo complained, at the computer. “I’m  _ trying  _ to oversee communications here.”

West sighed, leaning back, as Brawn yelled at Campagnolo and grumbled and complained. “Ugh,” he said to Yield. “Maybe you’re right. I think I’d have to listen to him bitch and moan the whole time.”

“Uh-huh,” Yield said, as the situation settled down.

“Well,” West sighed, hopping down off the seat. “No time like the present to find out.”

“Wait-” Yield said, as West walked over to Brawn and put a hand on his shin, smiling up at him. Yield watched as West smiled charmingly and flirted, flattering Brawn right into walking them both out of the room. Yield could practically taste the floor.

“How the hell does he  _ do  _ that?” he muttered, more in shock than anything else. “It’s like he’s an outlier or something!”

Over at the computer console, Yield watched the blonde guy and the blonde woman talk about something -- something about “Crossing legal lines” and “obfuscation.” It didn’t sound like a very happy discussion, but truth be told, Yield wasn’t overly fond of the other humans. West was fine -- more than fine, he was great -- but the other ones made him nervous. Like they were waiting for an opportunity to pick him apart and do a full autopsy, Prowl-style.

Yield sighed as he thought about West again, putting his chin in his fist as a smile curled at his lips. They were due for a joyride tonight. It was nice to get out of the base and stretch his alternator, especially with West as a riding buddy. That is, if West wasn’t still occupied with Brawn. Yield grimaced at the idea and shuddered. Good for West for enjoying himself, but the pipsqueak could have that  _ all  _ to himself.

  
  


\-------------------------------------------------

  
  


**_Two Weeks Later: Skywatch Autobot Base._ **

  
  


West lay next to Yield in the bed, watching the holovid screen Yield had up on the wall. “We could be watching what they’re doing in North Korea right now,” West said. “I heard they got Cosmo to scramble the footage so they can go maximum effort.”

“Well, that just means we can’t see what’s up either,” Yield complained. West just vaped from his rig, puffing cotton-candy vapor. “Besides. I’m tired of hanging around watching missions.”

“Yeah, well.” West huffed. “Can’t exactly go for a joyride, right now.”

“Didn’t we just do one?” Yield joked, causing both of them to giggle conspiratorially. West cracked up more, holding his stomach and putting his vape on the bedside table. Then he sat up, stretching.

“Well, suit yourself,” he said, turning around, climbing down off the bed and hopping to the floor. “I’m gonna go walk around, just to stretch my legs. You sure you don’t wanna come with?”

“Nah.” Yield yawned. “You go do whatever.”

“Eh. Alright.” West walked out, wandering the base until he came to the command room. Campagnolo was on the horn with Cosmo, telling him to unscramble one of the feeds. “Oh, hey, what’s going on?”

“There’s a situation with the bots on the ground,” Bumblebee said. The footage unscrambled and West gaped at the explosion with silhouettes in it.

“That,” Campagnolo said, “Looks  _ really  _ bad.”

“This is horrible,” Bluestreak said. “Like a nightmare. Can’t we do anything about it?”

“We are doing something about it, if you’d let us concentrate. This is the agitation signal we use when we think we have a disguised Cybertronian. Its range is only good in the US, but we think we can boost it --”

Another soldier ran in, looking frantic. “Sir! You really need to see this.” He brought up a news report, where a reporter was showing --  _ the footage that they’d been watching just a moment ago. _ West’s eyes widened.

“Oh, shit,” he summed up.

“Sandra unscrambled the feeds,” the other soldier said. “Timecard swipe says she left ten minutes ago.”

On the TV, the news reporter was now flashing a story about how the Russian president had apparently ordered a nuclear strike on the Cybertronians in Korea. Chaos ensued at the base, but Optimus radioed in and insisted they had the situation under control.

“Under  _ control?” _ West responded, grabbing a headset and microphone. “Optimus, it’s a  _ nuke.” _

“Cosmo has eyes on it,” Prime said. “He’s redirecting the bomb to the arctic circle, and Thundercracker is with us, employing his talents on the energon factories in Dandenong and Pyongyang. The situation really is under control, West. We’re fine.”

  
  


\----------------------------------

  
  


West watched the screens in the command room 3 days later, crossing his arms as he frowned. Ever since the footage had gone live, there had been protestors outside the base day and night -- so much so that West and Yield had had to put a damper on the joyrides. They’d tried it once and West had gotten accosted and still had a nice bruise on his arm from a guy just straight up grabbing him to yell in his face. (He’d broken the dude’s nose, but still.) 

“I hate watching them out there,” West grumbled.  _ “And _ I’m going stir-crazy.”

“I agree,” Bumblebee mused. “We can’t do this anymore, Campagnolo.”

“I’m sorry, Bumblebee,” Campagnolo said, sheepishly. “I know it’s a huge mess, but we can wait for Spike to get back when the heat finally clears up and we can begin sorting it out.”

“No, I mean -- we have to stop being reactive. We have to just stop… waiting around for things to happen, we have to start actually getting ahead of these things. I’m the leader now. I’m going to lead.”

“H-hey wait,  _ Bee!”  _ West said, following Bee down the hallway as the yellow bug strode towards the big sliding doors facing a huge portion of the crowd. “Bee, shouldn’t we, I dunno,  _ prepare  _ for this first? Look -- I know me being ambassador has largely been to run interference between us and them but I  _ do  _ take my job seriously, you know! And -- and I feel like this is going to widen the scope of my job by  _ several  _ degrees and I would just like to be a  _ little  _ more prepared for it!”

Bumblebee stopped at the doors. They could hear the crowd outside, shouting and roaring. “You’ll be fine, West,” he said, smiling gently. “We’ll all be fine, okay?”

Bluestreak and Brawn were already flanking Bumblebee, who opened the door and just… walked out. West groaned, putting his face in his palm, as Brawn and Bluestreak followed suit. Scampering out to stand by Bumblebee’s leg, he watched a news reporter chatter about the new development as the crowd fell deathly silent.

“People of Earth,” Bumblebee said, and West groaned again, into both his palms this time.

“You sound like a fucking  _ Martian,” _ he hissed up at Bumblebee.

“I understand you’re afraid,” Bumblebee said. “Of course you are. You suffered horribly, just horribly, from people who looked just like us. Believe it or not, I know what it’s like to feel small. To be afraid in the face of great danger. And I’m not going to lie to you -- the people who set out to harm you and your planet are still here, some of them. And that’s why we’re here -- me and my friends, we’ve been working with your government to make sure it doesn’t happen again.” 

“You see, Bumblebee said, “Most of the beings who wanted to harm you have left. You saw them leave, on a spaceship a few months ago. And the few that are left are scared. You know as well as I do that scared people make bad, horrible decisions. The only cure for that is courage. And -- courage is severely lacking in anyone who sets out to harm another being. Some of my friends -- I don’t know how they do it. But I know how  **I** do it. I’m inspired by you all. I’m inspired by  _ him.” _ At this, Bumblebee leaned down slightly and put a hand at West’s back, and West suddenly felt all eyes on him. He realized very abruptly he was in a ten of swords tank top, galaxy print booty shorts, and bare feet. He just straightened up, preening for the cameras anyways. “This is West McLambert. He’s our ambassador to your kind. He’s brave, and compassionate, and incredibly dedicated. We are working with you as much as we can to make sure nobody  _ ever  _ lets anything like New York happen  _ ever again.” _

The crowd murmured, heads tilting together. Bumblebee straightened back up, and as the attention shifted away from West, he found himself wanting it back, even as he felt starstruck. “I understand now,” Bumblebee said. “You worry that we’ve come to take it all away again. And I understand that war is horrible, and horrific, but peace is what it takes true courage to maintain -- through collective action, through community. I’m not saying it will be easy. But I know you have that courage. I do.” Bumblebee glanced down at West and smiled, gently. West couldn’t help but smile back, flushing. “He does.”

The crowd murmured like it was on fire, until a commotion a few rows back startled everyone. The crowd parted as a disheveled man in a tan trenchcoat shouted _ “DEATH TO ALIENS!”  _ and drew a strangely silver gun out of his inner pocket, pointing it directly at Bumblebee. West’s armor folded out at once, but he was too late -- the bright purple beam from the gun hit Bumblebee squarely in the chest, causing him to scream horrifically and fall backwards. West shrieked and went to check for moving parts. It was a blur after that -- they managed to get Bee back into base, where the human medic had to start working on him because Ratchet was still with Team Prime. And without Ratchet, Bee wasn’t getting fixed. West sat by Bumblebee’s side and petted his helm, holding back tears behind his visor (he refused to lower it because there was no way in hell people would see him cry like this.)

With nothing else left to do… they waited. West sighed and jumped down, going out into the hall to have a moment to himself. Finally retracting his armor, he quickly wiped away tears and sniffed, taking a couple of shuddery breaths. Spike’s words bounced around in his head -- “You should call your parents.”

***

Against his better judgement, West scrolled through the contacts on his comms list. There was one he’d never, ever called, even after he’d put it on there. He’d almost deleted it a couple of times. Biting his lip, he called it. As it rang, he closed his eyes and mouthed, “please don’t pick up please don’t pick up please don’t pick up…”

A familiar, gruff voice said, “McLambert residence, Clement speaking. Who is this?” West’s armor activated immediately as his throat went dry and he tried to swallow the lump. Clement prompted again. “Hello? Who is this?”

“Uh --” West managed. “Uh -- s’me. D-dad. It’s -- um. It’s West.”

“West?” Clement’s voice shot up an octave. “I -- of course, it’s -- it’s been quite a long time. “H-how are you doing, uh -- son? Some of your army friends came by the other day.”

“Ha. Um, yeah, I heard.” West took a deep breath and tried to get his armor to retract, but it was staying tight. It didn’t budge an inch. “So, um. Have you seen the news lately?”

“Yeah. We saw you on the broadcast that just happened, actually -- are you alright?”

“I’m fine, um -- that was actually kind of what I was calling about…” God, this was so stupid -- why the hell was he seeking validation? They hadn’t even talked in five years. “Uh -- you know what? Never mind. How have things been with you and Mo -- Melissa? How’s MacKenzie?”

“Oh, she’s great.” The joy in Clement’s voice when he talked about MacKenzie both broke West’s heart and made him mad enough to spit with jealousy, because he knew that’d never be him. “She did some macaroni art the other day in class. Teacher says she’s a real artist.”

“That’s great,” West managed, almost forcing it through his gritted teeth. “Look -- I gotta go, but Spike mentioned I should call you. It’s been crazy ever since I left, so I just… didn’t really call anybody.”

“It can’t have been that crazy,” Clement chided.

***

“Well, I was halfway across the universe for about a year,” West said, irritated. There was a long, awkward silence. “Er -- not literally, but I was on a different planet. It’s -- it’s a long story, actually. I gotta -- there’s a situation here,” he lied, and quickly hung up, taking deep, deep breaths as he crumpled into kneeling. His armor still resolutely refused to retract, keeping him locked up tight and secure in his shell. In the other room, Bumblebee was still just barely hanging by a thread, waiting for Team Prime and Ratchet’s return.


	9. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Megatron's stunt in Albequerque, West takes it upon himself to get ahead of the PR machine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warnings:
> 
> \- emetephobia/vomit warning. look for the "***" symbol.

West hadn’t even recovered from calling Clement on the phone when there was a rattling crash outside and the blast of a Cybertronian firearm above-ground. The screech of rending metal sounded and West’s weapons onlined, as he bolted for the stairs and took them two at a time, just in time to see Soundwave of all mecha make his way into the holding cells and throw the detained, dead Con they had in there over his shoulder, leaving just as casually as he had come. 

The quick brusqueness of it all shocked West -- he’d just walked in and browsed around like he’d stopped for milk at the bodega, and left a trail of environmental carnage in his wake. West immediately ran to check the chamber where they were holding Megatron in gun form with suppressors, having managed to confiscate the firearm from the guy who had fired on Bee, but… he was still there.  _ Soundwave, _ coming so casually for the Con in holding, brushing aside their defenses like tissue paper and yet leaving _ Megatron, _ when it was so clearly in his ability to take him as well? Was this some kind of trap, a display of power?

Magnus rushed in, eyes wild and weapons onlined, clearly expecting to find the suppressor chamber empty. West glanced back and up at him over his shoulder and shrugged, nervously. “... he’s still here,” he said. “Soundwave hadn’t even  _ touched  _ him. I doubt he was even  _ in  _ here.”

Magnus drooped in shock, mouth hanging open. “What?”

“Yeah, look --” West very gingerly pointed out all the suppressor tubes still attached, making sure not to even jostle them. “He’s still in exactly the same position we put him in. The doors weren’t even opened. Not a scratch on them. Soundwave didn’t even stop for him.”

“I -- hm.” Magnus frowned thunderously, as Brawn and the others came to check as well, all gaping unabashedly at the sight. Everyone retreated, closing the doors to begin shoring up their defenses again. Magnus, West, and Brawn all brooded, nervous about what that could mean.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Magnus insisted. “Why didn’t Soundwave take Megatron? They raid the holding cells… they even take a Decepticon that’s died… and yet they don’t take Megatron.”

“I don’t like it,” Brawn growled.

“I agree,” West conferred, brows drawn low. “At the very least it’s fishy.”

“This has nothing to do with fish,” Magnus said, sternly. “This is no time for jokes.”

“It’s not a --” West sighed, waving a hand. “Whatever. Point is, I agree. This reeks, but of what I don’t know.”

“Mm. Also, they didn’t try to kill us,” Magnus said. “It makes no sense. Why not finish us off?”

“Agreed,” West nodded. “Soundwave barely looked at me. He had full line of sight to fire.” 

“It’s obviously a trap,” Jazz said, helping another bot right a girder beam to brace the ceiling.

“One thing is for certain,” Magnus mused, pinching his chinpiece in his fingers. “We’re no longer safe here. We have to evacuate.”

“Sir,” Prowl said, moving another beam with Yield to help him, “this base’s senior officer is currently in critical condition downstairs. It would probably be dangerous to move him.”

“And it would be even more dangerous to stay here. Our base is currently indefensible, and we’re stationed too far away from Omega Supreme. We should’ve never relocated here.”

“This feels like we’re running,” Prowl insisted.

“Make no mistake, soldier,” Magnus growled, gritting his teeth. “Prime, Bumblebee, the base’s mechanic, and our medic are all gone. Skywatch command was just totally neutralized. We were attacked and beaten soundly. We  _ are  _ running.” Magnus faced everyone and put his hands to his mouth. “I want everyone to prepare to evacuate for Omega Supreme, as soon as possible! Grab your belongings and meet at the bay doors to make the drive!”

  
  
  


\----------------------------------------

  
  


West drove along the front of the pack on Yield, armor fully extended. His stuff was graciously parked in Yield’s subspace, as Magnus carried Bumblebee in his trailerbed under his top car-carrier, which was retracted so the top was flat rather than having a dip in the middle for extra cars.

“I don’t like this,” Yield commed West on a private channel. “This feels like we’re exposed.  _ This _ feels like a trap.”

“I can’t say I disagree,” West muttered, leaning into the wind with his hands around Yield’s handlebars. “Feels like they flushed us out on purpose. Like Soundwave was just a birding dog.”

They both chewed on that grim thought -- but they didn’t have long to choke it down, as blaster fire came from the back, gears crying out behind them. Everyone skidded to a halt, looking over their shoulders. Magnus bellowed for them to get into formation two as he detached the carriage carrying Bee, and transformed.

  
  


An army green jeep sped up, with someone standing up in it and howling through a megaphone.

“ATTENTION SKYWATCH FORCES. LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS. JOIN US AGAINST THE ALIENS, AND YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED. BUT STAND AGAINST YOUR FELLOW MAN BY EXTRATERRESTRIALS AND WE CANNOT GUARANTEE YOUR SAFETY.”

“We finally get contact with aliens, and this is what we do with it?” West muttered, onlining his weapons.

“This is an illegal action. Whatever you think you’re doing, any aggressive action you take will be acting against your own country,” the Skywatch officer driving the truck at the head of their formation said. 

Pennington came up to Magnus, bandaged around the head. “Magnus, these are human civilians. You can’t fire on them.”

“What?” Magnus said, brows flying up. “If they’re firing on us, we have the right to defend ourselves. Surely you have rules of engagement?”

“Yeah. We do.” Pennington said. “But if you kill these people, there’s no way we’ll be able to recover.”

Magnus thought on it, growled, and turned back to the group. “Everyone! No firing on human civilians! We keep moving to Omega Supreme!”

“Are you serious?” Someone yelled, frantically. “We’ll never make it! Gears is hurt!”

“Load him in the carriage,” Magnus said, transforming and hooking the back carriage back up. “We have two miles to go until Omega Supreme. We can get there.” And with that, everyone took off, chased down by the men in the jeep and their blasters. One hit Bluestreak in the wheel and he yelped, swerving before getting control of himself. Yield was by far the most nimble in evasive maneuvers, but only because there was less of him on the ground to swerve around. And luckily, he and West had had lots of practice doing evasive maneuvers together so West’s weight didn’t overbalance him.

“Magnus, this is crazy!” Someone said. “We can’t do this, we have to turn and fight! Someone’s gonna get seriously hurt!”

“No. We retreat to Omega Supreme. We’re almost there.”

Just as West was sure that they wouldn’t be able to make it, blaster fire rained down and blew up the jeeps full of aggressors, vaporizing them all instantly. Magnus cursed and detached the trailer, transforming.  _ “Dammit! Who fired?” _

Overhead, a dark, black jet roared past, transforming between the Autobots and the wreckage of their pursuers. West gaped unabashedly as Megatron, in a brand new body, smirked at them. “You look like you’re having some trouble with the locals.”

“Well,” West managed. “I guess we know why Soundwave didn’t take Megatron when he busted in the door like graham crackers.”

“Attack!” Magnus bellowed, and everyone concentrated their fire on Megatron. He didn’t even flinch, and West vividly remembered that fucking gorge, watching his smug fucking face grinning down at them as Devastator wreaked havoc. It didn’t help that they were in the desert. Yield was kneeling next to him, concentrating fire on the warlord in tandem with West.

“He’s not even breaking a sweat,” Yield muttered. “The only one I’ve ever seen able to put a scratch on Megatron is Starscream!” A blaster shot at their feet sent them both flying -- where West felt a sharp blow on the back of his head and immediately blacked out harder than he had in a long, long time.

He woke halfway being fought over by Rumble and Frenzy, both of them tugging on one of his limbs as people nearby -- sounded human -- screamed and shrieked. 

“I wanna carry the little one! Swap with me!” one of them said, whether it was Rumble or Frenzy he wasn’t sure.

“No! If you carry the little one that means I have to carry someone bigger! You’ve got your own!”

“Yeah, he’s heavy! And he’s so big I have to drag him! The tiny one looks light!”

“He  _ is  _ light! Which is why I got him first! He sounds practically hollow!”

“Think he’s some kinda flier?”

“He looks like a monoformer.”

West started to struggle, grunting and yelping when it threatened to pull his bad shoulder out of its socket. Both Rumble and Frenzy shouted and wrangled with him. One of them was having more trouble because they only had one hand to hold onto him with, so he just focused on making himself as slippery as possible, slapping and writhing and wriggling. He halfway fell out of their grip, his feet briefly landing on the ground. 

“Hey-!” one of the cassettes said, grumbling. “Stay still, you little --!”

**_“Enough!”_ ** Megatron’s voice boomed, as big footsteps thundered over.  _ “What _ is the problem over here?”

***

“We got a wiggler,” the cassette holding him said. West just struggled some more, feeling floppy and uncoordinated. He resisted the sudden urge to puke inside his visor to relieve the wave of nausea. He gagged, deciding --  _ nope! _ And retracted the visor, flipping over to heave his guts out onto the ground. Everything spun around him.

“A human!” one of the cassettes shrieked, dropping him on the ground. “No way!”

_ “Ew,” _ the other one said. “Why do they have to be so full of  _ juice?” _

West hacked and coughed, retching, and groaned, panting raggedly. Tilting his head up, he saw Rumble dragging Yield behind himself, one hand around each ankle. Yield had a hole in his gut.

***

A giant hand reached down and picked him up around the middle, as Megatron brought him up to stare at him like he was a particularly precocious ant. West just struggled and pushed against his fist, gritting his teeth.

“Ooh!” Frenzy cried, jumping up and down. “Are you gonna squish it? Are you?” Next to him, Rumble giggled as he finished dragging Yield over to the pile of groaning, injured Autobots, then dusted off his hands.

Megatron and West stared at each other for what felt like forever. West growled and mustered all his strength to spit in Megatron’s eye, causing the warlord to actually flinch back a bit before snarling and tightening his fist, just a bit. West got very still, the pressure making his armor plating groan with effort. “No,” Megatron growled, before carelessly tossing West aside into the pile of injured Autobots. “Not worth it.”

Hound, who had Bee over his lap, gathered West in too. West felt sick again, but he was totally empty, so all he could do was groan as he passed back out, head swimming.

  
  


\----------------------------------

  
  


**_Just Outside Albuquerque: Shortly After._ **

  
  


“Are you going to try and destroy the city, Megatron?” Optimus growled, dangerously, as they stood on the opposite bank of the river overlooking Albuquerque. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. You would try to stop me, I would fight back, and I can’t be killing you just yet. No -- instead, I’ve taken some of your soldiers, and dumped them within the city limits. These humans you trust, Prime -- if they’re so noble, then we can be sure nothing will happen to them.”

  
  


\----------------------------------

  
  


**_Albuquerque._ **

  
  


West stirred, head pounding, to hear Gears say “Just put down the gun, alright? Nobody has to get hurt.”

West groaned, cracking his eyes open, and his head felt like it was going to split open. When he finally managed to open his eyes, he resisted the urge to heave again, and heard muffled raised voices over by where most of the cop cars were parked. He looked around, though turning his head to scan hurt like hell. They were… on a playground? Confused, and feeling like he might’ve hit his head just a little too hard, West squinted. “Er -- are we on a playground?”

“Yeah.” Hound looked around nervously. “How are you feeling?”

“Like my brains got scrambled in a pan,” West moaned, putting a hand over his eyes. “And my body got taken apart to microwave each piece separately, and then stitched back together with mint dental floss.”

The humans pointing weapons at them seemed to calm down for a second, even seeming confused. One human stepped up to the plate, and even gave West a tiny, reassuring smile when he saw the boy looking at him. He turned to the others and seemed to try and defuse the situation, the blue of his uniform saturated in the light. West thought he was going to try and quiet down the situation, as the other aggressors were led away, until he picked up a gun and aimed it straight at the group of bots.

“Those guys were loony tunes,” he said, fist gripping the gun, “but it doesn’t mean they were wrong. You things aren’t people. And a lot of people died because of you.” He met eyes with West, and looked back up at Hound. “Slide the boy over. At least he’s a person.”

“Don’t you dare,” West croaked, at Hound. “He’ll just shoot you.”

“Now, please,” the man said, fingers tightening on the gun. “I don’t want to shoot him, but I will.”

“I don’t think we can move him,” Hound said, nervously. “He hit his head pretty bad when we got dropped here…”

“Yeah. Right.” He aimed the gun with more intent, staring down the scope. “Pretty sure ‘to protect’ is in my job description…”

“Protect capital, maybe,” West muttered, and got shushed by someone.

The cop continued. “-- and you’re the biggest threat I can --”

Bumblebee groaned, wheezing. “You don’t… you don’t want to do that. My friends here, we could’ve stomped through you no problem. But we’re here to protect, too. And there is strength in acting unselfishly. I know you have that strength too.”

Across the street, Jazz transformed -- Spike must’ve driven him. He seemed impatient, antsy, jumpy. He slipped behind cover, getting into position. West groaned, shutting his eyes, head throbbing. He heard a scuffle, feet pounding, and then when he opened his eyes Jazz was jumping in front of them, incinerating the man with one blaster shot, leaving a charred spot and some bones.

“Jazz  **_no!”_ ** Bumblebee yelled, and it made West’s head pound so much he thought he’d be sick again. “What did you  _ do?” _

  
  


\------------------------------------

  
  


**_Omega Supreme’s Ship: Later._ **

  
  


West read the report on his datapad, head bandaged and wounds tended to. Wheeljack had moved on to Thundercracker, who Brawn had apparently sought out at Ultra Magnus’s behest before they’d left for Omega Supreme. The news was also playing on tv. “... Sergeant John Powell was the only casualty in today’s attack, though not much else is known about this incident.” West growled, head spinning. This wasn’t fair. The city hadn’t been  _ attacked, _ a group of injured people had been held hostage and the situation had boiled over.

West commed Yield, a thought brewing in his head. Perhaps there was a way to flex his new ambassador muscles and get in front of this. It’d be underhanded, sure -- he thought of the way Powell had smiled reassuringly at him -- but this was his  _ family. _ “Yield,” he murmured. “Feelin’ better yet?”

“Oh, yeah,” Yield said, in another room. “Wheeljack fixed me up good. What’s up?”

“I need you to take me somewhere,” West murmured, “are you up for a drive?”

“Yeah, I can flex my belts. What are you thinking? Are you sure it’s…  _ safe  _ for us to be out right now?”

“Gotta take a chance,” West murmured. “Might need a little help staying upright, though.” He sat up, knowing that everyone’s attention was focused elsewhere, and gingerly hopped down from the table, falling over with a grunt when he hit the floor. He picked himself up, still on the horn with Yield. “Meet me outside Omega Supreme’s ship, okay?”

“Gotcha.”

West snuck out of the ship, down the ramp, where Yield was waiting for him in altmode. Unsteadily, he tottered his way down the ramp and onto Yield’s seat. Behind him, Yield’s holoform materialized, the leather of his biker-suit soft as one of his arms squeezed West around the middle, gently. “Here,” Yield murmured, huge and warm behind him. “So you don’t have to worry about staying upright. I’ll do all the driving. Where to?”

“Closest city,” West muttered. “Think it’s Albuquerque.”

“You wanna go  _ back  _ to Albequerque?” Yield asked, starting his engine and roaring away anyways, taking off through the crags. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Need to talk to reporters,” West managed. “But don’t want them near Omega Supreme.”

“S’fair, I guess,” Yield muttered. “But -- this couldn’t wait? Even for like… a day?”

“Gotta get on top of it.” West closed his eyes, brow wrinkling down as he leaned back against Yield’s holoform. “While it’s still unfolding. Everyone’s confused.”

“You are too much of a damn bureaucrat,” Yield said.

West hushed, putting a finger to his lips. “Saving my energy,” he said. “Be shoosh.”

  
  


\------------------------------------------

  
  


“Alright,” Yield muttered, nervously, shaking West. “We’re here. They’re looking at us funny, you’d better have a plan.”

West sat up, yawning, and got off the motorbike, placing his hands on the handlebars to walk Yield over by habit even though his holoform was still seated on the bike. The news reporter outside of the Albequerque playground stopped in their broadcast, staring confusedly at West. A couple of staff came up to remove them, but West just waved them off, explaining. “I’m, um.” He coughed awkwardly, and then straightened. “I’m ambassador. To the Cybertronians, I mean. We just got an urgent update about the situation, and they sent me to brief it.”

“And um -- I was his ride,” Yield explained helplessly, waving gently. “Hi…”

“Kid, c’mon,” the staff member said, glancing down. “You don’t even have any shoes on.”

West just extended his suit in answer, startling the guy, and then retracted it, crossing his arms and lifting a brow, ignoring how it made his head spin. “You try wearing shoes with that,” he sassed. “Now, I braved a concussion to come out here, are you going to let me give you breaking news or not?”

“Bill, what’s going on over there?” The reporter asked, glancing back over at the camera as he strained to be out of frame.

“Kid showed up, says he’s ambassador to the robots.” The staff guy shrugged helplessly. “He does look a whole lot like the kid from Skywatch. And he’s got the armor suit.”

“Cut the cameras for a second,” the reporter said. After they were cut, he came over to West, glancing momentarily at Yield. “So, what do you have for us?”

West smiled, sweetly, disarmingly. “Oh, thank you, sir. I -- it’s just that we at Skywatch and the Autobots received news that Sergeant John Powell  _ may  _ have been a facsimile avatar for the remaining Decepticon Army forces.” Behind him, Yield tried to keep a lid on his surprise, but West knew the way his engine did that tiny little rev. West wasn’t thrown -- Yield was probably surprised because it was an absolute, bald-faced lie. There was  _ no  _ evidence that Powell was a facsimile -- just another human taking out his frustration on any mechanical that moved.

Confused murmurs rippled through the few nearby. The reporter lowered his brows, and tilted his head. “And what would that mean?”

“Well, facsimile avatars --” West sighed. “They’re lab-grown humans, basically, implanted with technical code. They exist to be sleeper agents for Megatron’s cause, and are often prone to…” he appeared to fish for words, holding his head for a moment. “I’m sorry, I’m still a little… scrambled. I would’ve waited, but we felt we had to keep everyone updated with a moment’s notice. Anyways, um -- facsimiles are often prone to… malfunction. We don’t have all the intelligence yet, so this theory is unproven, but… we think that Powell was a facsimile avatar, and either his directive was to incite the conflict in the Albequerque playground by any means, or he was experiencing an error and they lost control of him.”

“Would you be willing to go on camera with this?”

“Oh,” West said earnestly, blinking his baby grays, “absolutely, sir. Skywatch is doing its best to keep everyone updated with any theories we might have for why this horrible tragedy happened.”

  
  


\------------------------------------------

  
  


_ “Shit,  _ **_shit,_ ** **_shit!_ ** **_”_ ** Spike swore, kicking the nearest available table leg.  _ “Fuck, _ what the  _ hell  _ is he doing!” He ran to the doorway, leaning out of it, and cupped his hand to his mouth. “Prime! You’re gonna wanna see this!”

Big footsteps rumbled as Prime came into the room, taking in the broadcast on TV and eyes widening when he saw West, standing next to a reporter, gravely giving an interview about how Skywatch had very preliminary intelligence that Sergeant Powell may have been a facsimile inserted to escalate the situation.

“But -- are you saying that meant he deserved to die?” the reporter said, and West gasped, putting a hand to his chest as his eyes blew wide.

“No, of course not!” he said, scandalized, still with fucking bandages around his head. “Jazz’s actions were still rash and will be subject to proper discipline, but this is just the situation that Skywatch has been made aware of. Of course, we’ll update everyone as new information comes to light.”

“Who the hell let your little mascot off the leash?” Spike snarled at Prime, who just glanced down at him.

“If I’m not mistaken,” he said, “you employ him as well.”

“We have  _ no intelligence _ that Powell was a facsimile! We can’t even -- we can’t even magic some out of our asshole if we tried, right now! What the hell are we gonna do? And -- look, he brought that fucking motorbike with him! Those two need to be separated, mark my words --”

“We will be speaking to West when he returns,” Prime said sternly, as they both glanced at the screen again. “None of us asked him to do this. Jazz’s actions are entirely his own fault, even if I understand his fear.”

“Right now,” West said, on screen, “it’s just very important to remember that this is preliminary intelligence and Skywatch will continue to update with new developments as we have them -- though probably not by sending me personally this time.” He took a moment to giggle and Spike wanted to rip his head off. “Also, I just wanted to take a moment personally and express my gratitude that the loss of life was comparatively so much smaller than what it could’ve been if things had gotten more out of hand.”

“Well, thank you so much, Mister McLambert -- Skywatch ambassador to the Cybertronians.” The reporter reached out a hand to shake.

“West, please.” West flashed a winning smile and shook his hand firmly, nodding. “And of course -- just doing my job.”

_ “Dammit!” _ Spike cursed again.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope yall like this one!


End file.
